On Thu, 12 Jul 2001 16:04:16 +0200 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Joost Kooij) wrote: > On Thu, Jul 12, 2001 at 03:19:00PM +0200, Mart van de Wege wrote: > > On Thu, 12 Jul 2001 02:08:58 +0200 > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Joost Kooij) wrote: > > > > > Dselect has a "select" mode that lets you manage your package > selections > > > interactively. The advantage of this is that you retain full > control > > > over package selections. > > <huge snip> > > > > Aye, there's the rub: IT DOESN'T! Sorry for shouting, but the way > dselect > > handles suggests and recommends is braindead, to say the least. > > If I want to install some package and not the suggests that go with > it, I > > can forget about dselect, unless I use shift-q to override the package > > selection, which frankly defeats the purpose of dselect in the first > > place, doesn't it? > > When I test this here on a sid system, this is what I can actually > verify: > > When you mark for installation a package that has a suggests: some other > packages, dselect drops you in a dependency resolution screen. The > screen > lists the newly marked package and all the suggested packages listed. > Only the already marked package is marked for installation. When you > simply press enter, nothing is changed about your selections and you > are back in the main list. When instead you do want to add some of the > suggested packages to your selections, mark them for installation and > press enter. > > In the case of a recommends:, it is usually a recommends: and not > a suggests: for a reason. When you add a package with recommends: > to your selections, dselect will propose the implied markings of the > recommended: packages. But you can still easily change and override it, > just revert the markings manually, or with the 'D' key, then override > the automatic dependency resolver with the 'Q' key. If you were never > supposed to use these, they would not have been programmed and > prominently > documented in the online help that is available in the package > selections > management mode. >
Ok, So I messed up suggests: and recommends:. Sue me :) I must agree with you though that dselect is not half as intimidating as its opponents like to pretend, but it *can* be cumbersome at times. > > It's true that some packages don't quite work as expected until you've > > installed *all* dependencies (Gnome comes to mind), so for these > dselect > > is good, but otherwise it installs way too much cruft on your system > and > > gives you no sane way of getting rid of it. > > Well, in fact it does. There is the list of installed packages, from > which you can choose packages to uninstall. It's intuitive, not? > > Experiment a little with the package list sort options. Find new ways > of looking at installed packages and available packages. By section, > by status, by priority, or combinations thereof. Explore previously > untought of operations on whole groups of packages (don't aim at foot). > Hmmm, First thing I did half a year ago on installing Debian for the first time was learn dselect in and out. I quite liked it, but haven't used it in about 4 months or so, so my memories are a little vague. One thing I do remember though, I installed Xshipwars, and dselect refused to install it without the Y sound server (yiff-server IIRC). That clashed heavily with the gnome esd server, to the effect that gnome wouldn't start at all. I tried everything I could think of, but there was no way that dselect would remove yiff-server with Xshipwars still installed. I found out that apt alone would allow me to things like that, at the added price that I would have to know in advance which packages to install. I happen to prefer that. Mart -- Baby even the losers get lucky sometimes Even the losers keep a little bit of pride Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - Even The Losers
pgpJEixoLBXrS.pgp
Description: PGP signature
