Some time ago, I think there was a proposal to change the way task packages are put together. Instead of task-* packages, relevant packages would have something like:
Task: programming/c If people want the kind of flexibility described in the thread (trees, subtrees, etc). We should look into implementing that on a package level, and add appropriate support in dpkg / apt so that people can use dselect / capt / aptitude -type frontends to manipulate these packages. While I am open to suggestions for improving tasksel, making it more complex is *not* my goal. Remember that tasksel is primarily used as something people used when they *first* install Debian. It is not really meant for people to incrementally install things on their system. With this in mind: 1) I agree with joey that anything more than about one (25-line) screenful is probably too much. There are many things that can be better taken care of with metapackages (a la netscape). I'd go as far as saying that language-based task packages shouldn't be treated as something you display in tasksel, instead, we should take hints from the installer (for example) about what language a user chooses to use for an install (assuming an i18nized installer here...) and offer to install that *one*. Of course, having documentation/screen messages that suggests other packages that the user can install *after* the install process is always a good idea. 2) Perhaps in woody, in addition to tasksel (beginner's mode) and dselect (guru mode), we'd be able to use some apt frontend that implements a nested hierarchical task structure as suggested by various people in this thread. My 2cents, as the author of tasksel ... :P randolph -- Debian Developer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.TauSq.org/
