Re: "dselect" replacement project ("deity")y
> > Note that RedHat gets this right, at least on the initial install. They
> > prompt for groups of programs that generally would be chosen together
> > and hide the ugly details unless you ask to pick individual items.
> > It may be nice to individually pick every file on a unix distribution
> > but most people have better things to do. These days you probably
> > can't buy a disk that is too small to hold a fairly complete
> > installation.
>
> I don't know. I was quite thrilled when I found that debian was giving me
> the option to know more or less exactly what was going on my system.
You have to compare against RedHat, not slackware. They have a checkbox
for 'select individual components'. So you get your choice.
> I was of course less thrilled by the problems
> mentioned above, especially the confusing way the dependencies are
> presented.
This is the real issue. If you could select the 'high level' groups
and only deal with the components if you want the option it would
be fine. But if I select a group I want it to mean 'install what
it takes to make this work', not 'tell me about some other things
I need to do first in some unknown order'.
> Nevertheless I think individual package selectin on install is
> something we should keep, at least as a perfectly accesable option. I
> would like to see the energy go into that rather than a more general
> packaging scheme. I think more new users like it than you think.
Watch someone else install both Debian and RedHat, then think about
that again. New users want something that works the first time.
On the other hand, dselect might be fine once you get past the initial
install. Perhaps all it really needs is a special install mode
where it knows that you have to take certain things in a certain
order.
Les Mikesell
les@mcs.com
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