Bug#34189: apt: Selecting sources
Package: apt
Version: 0.3.0
Severity: wishlist
Jason et al,
This is somewhat sourced from rms' "I can't recommend Debian without
recommending non-free! End of the Internet predicted!" thread, but should
stand on its own.
Would it be possible to add to Apt's configuration a question something
along the lines of:
How do you want to install? http
What is the hostname of your local debian mirror? mirror.aarnet.edu.au
[at this point it opens an http connection to mirror.aarnet, checks for
"/debian" or "/pub/debian", then looks in "dists/" for what distributions
are available]
The following distributions of Debian are available on this mirror:
Released distributions:
stable [release 2.0r5, codename: hamm]
Development distributions:
frozen [codename: slink]
unstable [codename: potato]
Others
proposed-updates
sid
[which can be generated, if you know which is a link to which, just
by knowing how we name things, or probably better by using the Release
files or similar]
Which distribution do you wish to follow [stable]? stable
The following categories of software are available within stable:
main
contrib
non-free
Which of these do you wish to follow [main contrib non-free]? main
[it'd probably be nicer to have a one line "Description: ..." within the
Release files so that could be displayed here, too, actually]
Anyway, I'm suggesting this for two reasons. First, it makes it easy for
newbies to grok the main/contrib/non-free splitup and all, and to find
out what source line they need to tell apt if they've got an incomplete
mirror, or are using some weird layout (like for KDE binaries on kde.org,
say).
The second is that this /also/ makes it possible to point Apt at a mirror
that only mirrors main (debian.gnu.org or gnu.debian.org, say), and never
complain that non-free doesn't exist. (rms has given some indication in
private mail that this would suit him fine)
Cheers,
aj
-- System Information
Debian Release: 2.1
Kernel Version: Linux sapphire 2.1.131 #1 Sat Dec 5 14:18:58 EST 1998 i586 unknown
Versions of the packages apt depends on:
ii libc6 2.0.7.19981211 GNU C Library: shared libraries
ii libstdc++2.9 2.91.61-1 The GNU stdc++ library (egcs version)
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