Re: [RFC/dpkg PATCH] Introducing an relaxed-Essential-like "Important" field
On Wed, Mar 09, 2016 at 12:15:47PM +0100, Guillem Jover wrote:
> Hi!
>
> On Wed, 2016-03-09 at 07:10:25 +0000, Niels Thykier wrote:
> > Julian Andres Klode:
> > > Since a few years, APT supports an "Important" field that is similar
> > > to Essential, but without the requirement for those packages to be
> > > installed (they just need to remain installed) and the ordering
> > > constraints. Previously, it was already an alias for Essential in
> > > APT.
> > >
> > > I relaxed the meaning a few years ago to make it suitable for use
> > > on site-specific or system-specific configuration meta packages.
> > >
> > > I propose to make this field official and add support to dpkg
> > > for it, as there are new use cases for it, like init systems,
> > > e2fsprogs, and mount - packages that are not needed on all
> > > systems (like chroots), but once installed should probably
> > > remain installed.
> > >
> > > I attached a patch to add support for dpkg, it's also discussed
> > > in a spec in the wiki.
>
> > > [1] https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/Spec/ImportantField
>
> As mentioned, thanks for writing this up!
>
> > I think the concept is good and and I like how it might be used to
> > reduce the essential set.
>
> I'd tend to agree, but I'd probably detangle the definition from
> Essential, as the only common thing is that these packages will just
> be hard to remove, but should probably not inherit any of the other
> Essential:yes facets.
That would be useful.
> > My personal minor concern is that "Important" might become ambiguous
> > since we also have a Priority labelled important[1].
>
> That was precisely my concern too, the name does not look good, and
> it's prone to much confusion.
>
Well, APT already had the field, and it's in use already, which is why
I'd like to keep it like that. But: Are there any better proposals?
- The obvious one would be Hard-to-Remove: yes, but that's somewhat
ugly and would not allow us to add further meaning to it if needed.
I don't know why that field was added, but:
History: Jason Gunthrope added the Important field to APT
in 1999-02-21, it was equal to Essential since then. I relaxed it a
bit a few years ago to not force immediate configuration and the
must-be-installed thing for it, but otherwise it's still the same.
commit 138d4b3d84035f2e0547d7de999d7c7ebb6b7adc
Author: Arch Librarian <arch@canonical.com>
Date: Mon Sep 20 16:52:55 2004 +0000
Free space check, fixed parser jump bug, added importat
Author: jgg
Date: 1999-02-21 08:38:53 GMT
Free space check, fixed parser jump bug, added importat
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