On Tue, Jun 29, 2004 at 09:12:17AM -0500, Michael Chaney wrote:
> Not to start a holy war, but aptitude is far better.  Give it a try,
> you'll forget about dselect.  It's also good at basic "grab a package"
> stuff.
> 

True. Tried it, used it for a couple of months, broke (with) it. My
romance with package managers tend to end like that, only to return to
my first love ;). Aptitude IIRC is actually a lot faster than dselect,
but I guess it's up to debian-boot and the debian-installer folks to
pitch aptitude in as the default "Advanced Package Selection" tool...

Of course, that's my pesos worth (I now refuse to call opinions $0.02
worth 'coz that's just not right for us Pinoys to prejudice our own
denomination ;) and I'm not going to start any jihads ^_^

There's one thing I'd like to see in dselect though: let it mutate from
just a package manager to a full-scale installer system suitable for
system cloning:

<snip hypothetical PC output>
Booting dselect...
...OK, loading libs and stuff ;-) OK, they're loaded.

Welcome to dselect -- the Debian GNU/Linux System Installer
Version 0.0.1, Setting Orange, the 34th day of Confusion in the YOLD 3170

dselect> load matrix level=hostile
Loading Debian Matrix System, please wait...
Loading and Installing Base system Packages on /dev/hda...
Detecting partitions: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 hda5
Warning: partitions hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 hda5 are Win*/DOS partitions
HOSTILE mode detected, deleting partitions: Goodbye motherf*cker.
Installing base system:
...

Base System Install: done.
Loading Debian Matrix: done.

dselect> load Construct mirror=http://ftp.hk.debian.org \
> release=testing:unstable priority=600:800 \
> if=ppp0 dial=1-800-234-4429 encrypt=DropBox

Loading Debian Matrix Construct, please wait...
Dialing 1-800-234-4429, interface ppp0...
WARNING: insecure phone line detected, activating DropBox...
DropBox: version 0.19 loaded
DropBox: HARDLINE DropBox loaded, cipher strength: 2**1048 bits
Connection established, setting up ppp0 for Construct loading: done.
Loading Packages and Release from http://ftp.hk.debian.org...
Detected testing-unstable Release Construct, building pins...
Pin-Priorities set: testing(600), unstable(800)
Default-Release is: unstable
...
Reading Package Lists: done.
Merging Package Info to Database: done.
Information on 246810 packages updated.

dselect> read selections if=/dev/fd0 file=selection.dselect

Mounting device /dev/fd0
Getting selections file selections.dselect: done.
Parsing selections: done.
Setting selections for system: 19245 packages selected.
No conflicts encountered.

dselect> install base important standard

Install Base, Important, Standard Packages.
As Per: set-selections (19245 packages selected).
Resetting selections for system: 2632 packages selected.

The follwing NEW packages will be installed:
...

0 upgraded, 2632 to install, 0 to remove and 16613 no upgraded.
Need to get 1.2TB/1.2TB of archives.
After unpacking 10.4TB of disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
...

Installation of System: done.
Have a nice Debian Day.

dselect> disconnect ppp0
Disconnecting ppp0: DropBox trailing connection bits... done.
Hang-UP.

dselect> reboot

*** REBOOT LINUX ***

</snip>

Ok, so I got carried away with that ;-) The point is, dselect can be
made to be faster, smarter, better: a simple command like `dselect
install base` or something like that can even replace the above play.
Hopefully someone from debian-boot reads this, or maybe I'll fwd this to
them ;-)

Cheers,
Zakame

-- 
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 Debian - When you've got better things to do than to fix a borken system

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