Re: X

[Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>]

On Tue, Mar 25, 2003 at 07:39:44PM +0000, Pigeon wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 25, 2003 at 03:46:54PM +1100, Cameron Hutchison wrote:
> > A policy of "Sensible by default" (which I believe debian employs)
> > pretty much means you've got to install xdm when you install X.
> 
> What's wrong with something along the lines of: (Wording could
> probably be improved)
> 
>   You are installing the X Windows system.
>   If you like, you can also install the xdm X Display Manager, which
>   gives you a graphical login prompt on bootup instead of a text console
>   login.
> 
>   Do you want a graphical login? [Y/n]

It's technically pretty hard to have a debconf question that asks
whether you want to install another package. Maintainer scripts in
general don't operate at that layer.

Potentially you could have display managers ask whether they should be
active, but I don't maintain any of them so I'm hesitant to say whether
this would be a good idea.

> Knowing that this is not true, I unselected xdm in dselect... which of
> course made it start moaning like mad... enough to put any new user
> off not having xdm. Or if it doesn't you still have to figure out what
> hoops to jump through to make it accept your choices.

I imagine this'll be easier with dselect post-stable, which doesn't moan
so much when you deselect a package which a selected package recommends.

> Is there some issue connected with the packaging system that makes it
> really hard to ask if you want a graphical login? Not being into the
> details of the packaging system, I can't rule out the possibility of
> some weirditude making the answer "yes".

Yes, kind of. See above. :)

-- 
Colin Watson                                  [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]