On Tuesday 10 June 2003 08:12, Ben Burton wrote:
> Sure, it was always going to come from one source package.  It's the 37
> *binary* packages I was worried about, which is what the end users have
> to deal with.

Are there any thoughts or visions on how to deal with the ever-growing number 
of packages at all?
Having package tags and such, it should be easy to filter out those that are 
not relevant to the end user.
For instance, a package 'debian-personalizer', which gets fed from the new 
installer, would tag all i18n packages it knows as 'hidden', so that normal 
operations (aptitude, apt-cache, ...) won't see them, but debian-personalizer 
can then be used to modify system-wide i18n-related settings.

This would imply 3 assumptions:
- package tools know these tags (which could be prefixed with apt:: or 
whatever)
- it is possible to setup tag overrides, both as root and as normal user, so 
if I want package A to carry tag B, so be it
- the gain: if less packages are considered, less RAM and calculation time is 
needed (not sure about dependencies though)

Another such use would be to tag all laptop-related packages as hidden if the 
user indicates that a PC is in use. Or to hide all X11-related packages if a 
console-only system is to be set up.

Just random thoughts, so that packages can be used what they're intended 
for...

Josef

-- 
Play for fun, win for freedom.


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