Re: The Gordian Knot (was Re: Negative Summary of the Split Proposal)

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

    We don't have the resources for market research or formal usability
    testing, so its a judgement call. It's true that if you want a mirror
    site, you need to edit the file.

    I think the long term goal it to automate it somewhat more than that.
    The idea, IIRC, is to have a user select the right country (we can even
    make an educated guess on that...) and then we can automatically pick
    the fastest of the hosts currently assigned to, e.g.,
    http.us.debian.org.

That would certainly be a nice feature, but it might not be easy, so
it may not get done soon.  So it would be good to do something simple
first.

jgg@ualberta.ca sent me a Perl script, which he called a "setup
script" for apt (though he didn't tell me its file name).  It lets you
specify a mirror host name, and edits the configuration file for you.
That's exactly the sort of thing I am looking for, except that it also
asks this question:

     Please give the components to get
     The components are typically something like: main contrib non-free

     Components [main contrib non-free]: 

This is a form of the question "do you want to consider
non-free packages" that I would like to avoid asking.

Could we please remove this question from the default version of apt
that is in `main'?

Perhaps this question could be asked *if* some non-commented-out line
in the configuration file lists a non-`main' component.

Perhaps there could be a line in the apt configuration file
which lists the set of components to be considered by this script.
The initial version of the configuration file would then control
everything (unless the user edits it).