Re: Automatic software installing (like Win. 2000)

["Paul Huygen" <paul.huygen@huygen.nl>]

John Pearson <john@huiac.apana.org.au> wrote:

> [objections for auto-installing Debian packages when a user types a
> command from a package that has not yet been installed. One of the
> objections is, that package installation ought to be a task of the
> manager of the computer system and not of an ordinary user]

I can imagine another philosophy for automatic package installing. I
am sure that many people (I myself for instance) have installed many
more packages than they actually use. For that case I can imagine a
utility that remembers for each package the latest occasion that it
has actually been used, and removes the package if it has not been
used for a specific time. Then, if a user asks for that package, the
utility re-installs the package from the deb file. In this way the
system maintainer keeps control on what is installed, what is
installable and what is not installed and the system is as mean and
lean as possible. On the other hand, I presume that it is very
complicated to write a program that tracks the actual use of each installed
debian package.


Paul Huygen