I've been watching the explosive growth of deb packages in slink, now
around 2700 packages. Recently, the split-up of X11 into around 12
packages and the numerous packages used in slink for the Netscape
programs and the huge number (around 30) of packages that has to be
installed for the GNOME system, is, I fear, putting strain on an already
strained dpkg/apt/dselect management system.
The X11 split-up is particularly worrisome because the packages don't
have a "common" prefix in the name, i.e. xfonts-100-xxx, xbase, xterm.
Without a common prefix, the packages do not show up in the same place
in dselect's selection screen. At the very least, all packages in X11
system should have a name that starts with 'X11-', for example.
The developers of dpkg could do something like add a 'package grouping'
feature that lets newcomers (especially newbies to X11) understand the
relationship between packages.
This feature would, I fear, strain the dpkg system even more. I'm
starting to see occasional failures under dselect/apt/dpkg that
fortunately, for now, are transient (i.e. rerun dselect/apt and the
failure doesn't reoccur). It suggests to me that we are pushing our
package management software beyond its capability.
Does anyone else have the same concerns?
--
Ed C.
