Re: ncurses-base obsolete, but essential
Joey,
Why not accept "the sentence", "y", or "Y" as indicating an affirmative.
Don't change the excessivly verbose prompt, except to add an indication
that "y" would also work (hmm, maybe telling the user about the
shortcut after the fact, so they know next time, would also work). The
point gets made and users are not put out (or off) by having to type in
a sentence.
- Bruce
--
On Fri, 14 Jan 2000, Joey Hess wrote:
> Package: apt
> Version: 0.3.16
>
> Konrad Mierendorff wrote:
> > > You are about to do something potentially harmful
> > > To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, I understand this may be bad'
> > > ?]
> >
> > I can't believe this one! Programm behavior like this really sucks!
> >
> > One of the many small details that make Linux more usable is the absence
> > of such queries. Seems as if this is changing now.
>
> You're missing a lot of history. Historically, the only way to remove an
> essential package has been "dpkg --force-essential --remove foo". You could
> not do it from inside dselect. Dselect remove methods probably just gave up
> with something like:
>
> dpkg: error processing bash (--remove):
> This is an essential package - it should not be removed.
>
> Apt allows you to remove essential packages from inside dselect for the
> first time. The prompt really isn't any different than dpkg's insistance on
> --force options in some situations.
>
> I do think that apt should be modified to omit the prompt if some other
> essential package declares a conflicts (and perhaps a replaces too?) on the
> obsolete essential package. Jason, the idea there is that we need *some* way
> to allow obsolete essential packages (like ncurses-base) to be removed
> without forcing everyone who upgrades to type in that sentance, and if the
> maintainer of an essential package declares a conflicts, I think that is a
> good indication that removing the obsolete essential package is safe.
>
> --
> see shy jo
>
>
> --
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>
later,
Bruce
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