Re: Autoinstall, upgrade, etc
Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
>
> When should Deity decide that a package is going to be automatically
> installed? (Section 1.7) I was originally thinking this would be done
> after the user selects the 'go' button.
It should happen on the selection screen. (This will be a bit hairy, so
bear with me).
If a package is marked for installation (i.e. the "inst" button is
selected) then all dependancies (and recommends/optionals depending on
the user options) are set to inst at the same time. This kind of goes
against the "leave the buttons in the state the user setup last time" in
that a package can potentially be installed or taken off keep in this
way. I think this is necessary however for a transparent system.
(I'm just going to assume for the rest of this that "dependancies"
includes recommends and suggests if the user has indicated that they
want these to be included too).
So if someone clicks on inst for a package all dependencies are also
auto selected. If this package is subsequently unselected, then all
it's dependencies are likewise unselected. The only exception to these
rules are if the user has specifically selected one of the dependencies
for inst or another package requires it for it's dependencies.
I must remind you that why a package has been installed needs to be
recorded. If somebody has manually installed a package, then it's there
until the user manually purges it. If on the other hand, a package is
auto installed, then it will be auto removed when the dependant package
is removed as well. This means that unlike in Microsoft Windows, system
libraries that aren't being used (and that have been auto installed)
don't stick around taking up disk space.
As a side note, I would expect most people to allow all library packages
to be installed as needed and conversely auto removed if they are no
longer needed.
(Before anyone gets upset about packages getting auto removed, remember
that the user is shown all packages to be removed before actually
removing them. At that time they should be able to override an auto
removal.)
> I thought we were going to advoid the dselect route of prompting each time
> you install a package which is why I am thinking everything is done on the
> press of the go button.
The go button should merely take you to a screen where everything that
is to be done is shown to the user (listed by category). At this point
the user will confirm that they want all these changes to be made, and
only then are packages purged or installed.
The "Install screen" (as I believe I term it in the docs) lists all
packages to be upgraded, downgraded, newly installed, replaced, removed,
etc.
> Should suggests and recommends appear in the 'install as well' column?
If they are auto selected for install (as per above), then yes.
> Would you like to colour code package names in the install as well column?
> I was thinking at least black for normal and red for remove but perhaps
> also green and blue for suggests and recommends?
That is probably a very good idea. I hadn't thought of that. That
would be a very good detail to add. Go for it!
> Also, when the depends list for a package has been expanded how do you
> want to show 'or' if at all?
Drat. That was something I was putting off. 8) I haven't figured that
out yet (Sorry).
Off the top of my head, how about putting a verticle line that link all
the lines containing packages that are ored. For instance, for "mua,
smail | sendmail | exim" it would be:
mua xxx
| smail xxxx
| sendmail xx
| exim xxxxx
(Only the verticle bar is joined instead of seperate lines) Does that
make sense? It's not very good, but it's the best I can come up with.
I hope these answer all your questions adequately,
Thanks,
Behan
--
Behan Webster mailto:behanw@verisim.com
+1-613-224-7547 http://www.verisim.com/
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