On Tue, 13 Nov 2001, Jeff Waugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote...
: The reason why it's complicated like this is because there are no task
: packages anymore, just task definitions in the packages themselves. I have
: no idea why this changed - it seems really backwards to me. Can someone
: enlighten?
They relised how hackish the task-* packages were.
[background for non-debian hackers]
A package in debian can be set to "depend","suggest","conflict",etc on
other packages. All the task packages were was a very small package, which
"depend"ed on all the other tools.
Let's take "task-laptop" for example.
[depends] apmd
Utilities for Advanced Power Management (APM) on laptops
[depends] pcmcia-cs
PCMCIA Card Services for Linux.
[depends] anacron
a cron-like program that doesn't go by time
[suggests] netenv
Configure your system for different network environments.
[suggests] irda-tools
IrDA handling tools
[suggests] irda-common
IrDA management utilities
[suggests] toshutils
Toshiba laptop utilities
So the debian people decided this was just really pants, and started this
new task system, where you specify the tasks the package belonged to in
the package. This way, there are less packages, and it is easier for the
relevant maintainers to update which packages their stuff belongs in.
Search on debian-{devel,policy} for more.
There should be a new 'tasksel' or similar that handles the new task
definitions.
\dopey
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