> > > > > I think this is a very good idea - imagine when Debian is ported to other > > hardware platforms and (dreaming maybe) other OS's - one JAVA application > > could handle the installation regardless of Hardware and OS. > > Wait: you've apparently missed the thread that I've been carrying on all > day. The point of the whole idea was to provide a way for people to get > information on and install packages. We discussed the idea that "finding > linux software can sometimes be difficult because we didn't know where to > look" and the fact that, while dpkg is a _GREAT_ tool, it doesn't > provide much information and isn't very user-friendly.
Don't know that I missed anything. The two tools available - dselect and dpkg - are both good, yet they are both lacking. Dselect has all of the information available, but is harder than all-get-out to learn. Dpkg is easy to learn but doesn't provide all of the needed information. On this I think we all agree. > All I'm suggesting is a deselect-like, x-enabled friendly dselect-like, yes. X-enabled, no. > neighborhood package finder and installer. Keep in mind that at this point a > remote java process (one _NOT_ running on your machine, but on the ftp server > or someplace else) CAN'T access your hard drive in a meaningful installation > way, as a security precaution. Locally, you could run it, but then you'd > already have to have X installed. > This is my point. Make something that *does* run locally, but write it in a language - any language - that has some flexibility. If the install scripts were HTML pages and Java-script (or *whatever*) loaded locally, then a person with a text-only browser would be able to access Debian. After X was installed, if that user chose to use a X-enabled browser, then Debian would also be available. I'm not always good at expressing myself in text - what I'm trying to convey is that *perhaps* Debian should break the User Interface away from the Debian-specific functionality. The functionality I'm referring to is: checking on package availability, installing/removing/upgrading packages, configuring packages. (ie. Package manipulation.) As an example: there are several Debian packages that are available, but are not available from any US archive. If the Debian routines were written in something like HTML, we could have pointers to the non-US sites. The user wouldn't have to know to check multiple sites for a complete installation of Debian, nor would they have to use multiple access methods to retrieve the requested packages. If they selected a package that required PGP or SSH, then the Debian routines would go and get those packages - from the non-US mirror. Help me is I'm missing the point. Chuck -- Chuck Stickelman, Owner E-Mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Practical Network Design Voice: (419) 529-3841 9 Chambers Road FAX: (419) 529-3625 Mansfield, OH 44906-1302 USA -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
