Stephen Leake wrote: > Ludovic Brenta <[email protected]> writes: > >> Depends on who "we" are; if "we" are experienced, tech-savvy people like >> yourself then you are right. If "we" have just switched to Debian >> because >> of hearsay about the quality of Ada packages in Debian, then "we" need a >> way to navigate the list of packages interactively to discover everything >> available. So, I stand by my opinion that "we" need some sort of >> dependency. > > You seem to be addressing several different problems at once.
Not really; forget about why I used aptitude in the first place; I explained only as a matter of introduction. I am probably the person who knows best what Ada packages are available in Debian :) So the real problem is the second one: > The second problem is "how does someone new to Debian discover all the > Ada packages that are available". > > The answer could be the same, or it could be "run the aptitude character > based GUI, and type some obsure commands", or it could be "run the > Synaptic modern GUI, use the buttons to search for gnat in > 'dependencies'". > > The latter seems likely to be the closest to the "typical" modern user's > expectations, except that they will be more likely to try searching for > "Ada" in "description and name" first, and get _lots_ of false positives > (that's what I just did :). > > But everyone will have different expectations, so it's good that we have > three possible answers. Perhaps we can post these answers in a Debian > Ada FAQ somewhere? > > They all suffer from various failures. apt-rdepends gives a precise > list, but doesn't give any descriptions. The aptitude character GUI > apparently only reports about installed packages, which is likely to be > none on a new machine. No; aptitude shows all packages, installed or not (in different sub-trees by default). > The Synaptic search requires use of a rodent-like > attachment :), gives some false positives, and leaves out > libopentoken-dbg (I'm not clear why). That's why I think that ensuring that all Ada packages are linked with one another in some sensible way would be a big help. Note: there is a fourth answer: use debtags. This is available both in aptitude and in synaptic; but it requires brave souls to add tags to each package and that's not done in the debian/control files but externally in a tags database. [...] > Now we are talking about a different problem; how to install packages > once we find out about them. I'd like this to be as immediate as possible; there should not be separate commands. > I doubt _any_ user will want to simply install "everything that uses > Ada". I expect them to browse the list, decide to install a couple of > packages to start with, and type: > > aptitude install libopentoken-dev libgnadesqlite-dev > > or just click on the check boxes in Synaptic. Yes. This is why our hypothetical user needs a browsable list of such packages in one screen in aptitude or Synaptic. The reverse dependencies of gnat-4.3 or gnat-4.4 is such a list but it is a wee bit incomplete (no -doc or -dbg packages visible). Moreover, if you look at all the immediate reverse dependencies of gnat-4.3 and install them all, you will be missing several -doc or -dbg packages and you won't even know about that. If each -dev package (already visible in this list) would Suggest the corresponding -dbg package and Recommend the corresponding -doc package (which is the current proposal), the whole selection + installation process would be streamlined. [...] > Ok. That means we need a Debian Ada FAQ, that addresses the concerns > above. Good idea but insufficient. There ought to be a way for beginners to browse the list of available packages, find all Ada packages easily, install them on the spot, and *then* wonder whether there exists a FAQ and where it is. -- Ludovic Brenta. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/a2c17ce1adf42ff3f69673f87cd30...@localhost
