Re: dselect

[Fabien Ninoles <ninf01@castor.GEL.USherb.CA>]

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On Thu, 9 Jan 1997, Ulf Jaenicke-Roessler wrote:

> Hi,
> 
>  I've got some (newbie) questions about dselect.
>  
>  1) Is it merely a frontend for dpkg or is it used for other tasks as well?

dselect is a front end to dpkg and some helpful scripts who for program 
installation (such as dpkg-ftp, etc). Dpkg as some more functionalities 
then only does access by dselect.

>  2) Do I've to use '=' (Hold) for all packages at the beginning of the
>     installation (and may be everytime I use dselect) in order to use
>     dselect without hazzle? I've got several brokenly installed packages
>     after removing and adding some programs without doing this.

That's a good thing to do though I doubt that's what who brokes you're 
packages. Sometime, some packages have little difficulties to 
installed/desinstalled themselve correctly. Must of the time, simply 
reinstalling (and may be purging in major case), correct everything

>  3) Everytime I want to add another package deselect seems to check ALL
>     packages and writes something like 'skipping deselected package ...'.
>     Is there a way of installing just the desired package?

That's a problem with the way dselect calls dpkg. He does it by entering
the debian directory (which depends on the methods set before) and by 
running dpkg with the -R|--recursive option. dpkg has the charge to check 
if each .deb files finds in its path are currently selected file than 
install them if necessary. If you have only some packages, you can do it 
by hand by existing dselect and doing dpkg -iGOEB name_file.deb

>  4) Now onto the last one ;)
>     Does dselect check if there's enough space left on the hd prior to
>     installation?

Nop, it doesn't cause it's hard to determine exactly how mush space are 
still and not all package have the installed-size tags included. But 
considered and upcoming-feature of dselect. (In how many times? Ian are 
still busy, but promises and new release of dselect for <soon>)

> Thanks in advance,
> 
>  Ulf
> 

You're welcome.

- ---------------------------------------------------------------
 "i have not failed 10,000 times, I have sucessfully found 
 10,000 ways that do not work."           -- Thomas Edison 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
Fabien Ninoles aka le Veneur        || Running Debian-Linux
Ninf01@gel.usherb.ca                || Lover of MOO, mountains, 
http://www-edu.gel.usherb.ca/ninf01 || poetry and Freedom.
- ---------------------------------------------------------------

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