Re: [Synaptic-devel] experimental task support added

[Panu Matilainen]

On Mon, 19 Jul 2004, Michael Vogt wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 16, 2004 at 02:50:48PM +0300, Panu Matilainen wrote:
> > > --task-descr $task: print a long description about the given task
> > 
> > Ok, apt-groupinstall needs to be modified talk this protocol then. Not a
> > big deal, the operations match 100% it's just syntax which differs
> > somewhat.
> 
> Sorry there is a little typo here. It should be "--task-desc $taskname"
> (notice the missing "r").


No problem, I haven't yet touched any of the groupinstall stuff other than 
make a quick "ok it seems to work" test version.

> 
> This is the format I agreed upon with Joey Hess (maintainer of the
> debian tasks and tasksel application). Here is a short example
> (included in README.tasks):
> 
> $ tasksel --task-desc desktop
> This task provides basic "desktop" software, including a variety of
> session managers, file managers and web browsers. It incorporates both
> the GNOME and KDE desktops, and provides a display manager which lets
> the user choose between the two.
> 
> 
> The interface is added to the code of synaptic and debian tasksel
> (thanks again Joey!). 
> 
> I wonder if we should provide a additonal button "packages in task" or
> something. But I guess this is not really need.

Hmm. I think I'd want to know what's in a task before installing it but 
maybe that's just me :) Here's what the current output of groupinstall 
looks like:
address@hidden pmatilai]$ apt-cache showgroup gnome-desktop
Group:
  gnome-desktop
Description:
  GNOME is a powerful, graphical user interface which includes a panel, 
desktop, system icons, and a graphical file manager.
Required groups: 
  base-x
Packages: 
  gnome-user-docs
  control-center
  gnome-themes
  gedit
  gnome-system-monitor
  gnome-applets
  ...

Probably need to change that a bit for Synaptic but I think I'll wait a 
bit for things to settle down before fixing the comps-backend for real.

BTW does tasksel support the notion of tasks requiring other tasks?
Another thing we've been pondering about with Richard is how to present 
language-related items - Suse backend looks like this currently:
Group: Kde-Desktop
Summary: KDE Desktop Environment
Available languages:
   cs da de el es fr hu it ja lt nl pl pt ru sk sl sv ta tr
Required groups:
  X11
  Basis-Sound
Packages:

..but then similar info isn't really available in comps.xml, instead it 
has groups like "german-support" which has German manpages and things like 
that.

        - Panu -