Re: "Meta" packages

[Jamin Philip Gray <jgray writeme com>]

> Talking with Telsa and Ankh, we came to the conclusion that it would be
> very nice to have meta-packages for gnome 1.4. Smaller libraries could
> be grouped together depending upon how essential they are, and this
> lessens the number of things which need to be installed. I'd simply like
> to bring it up for discussion. Would some kind of script be created to
> help those compiling it all, or what? The basic idea is to optimize the
> packaging and installation so that the downloads a 28.8 user has to make
> aren't too large, and the number of installations a t1 user has to do
> are minimal. I feel this will also help spread the new "essential"
> libraries when the time comes, and it still allows us to only update
> small libraries via helix-update when necessary.
> 

I'm not sure I agree that grouping packages together is such a good
idea.  The number of packages one has to install really *shouldn't*
matter.  I've never understood people's complaints with that.  Having
packages split up by functionality is beneficial for several reasons:

* each file is smaller...this is very nice for modem users; they can
  grab one file at a time.

* one only needs to install what one wants.  if I don't want  
  gnome-print, for example, I don't have to install it.

* i can update or remove a very particular element of my system
  without tampering with the rest of it.

A user who has a lot of bandwidth shouldn't find installing more files
difficult.  If that user has the Helix Gnome distribution, it's simply
a matter of running the updater.  Even if not, just download what you
want to update in a directory and do "rpm -Uvh *.rpm"  

Now, one idea that I think *would* be nice is to have an installer
file format that arhives RPM's all into one file, or optionally
downloads the necessary files.  In other words it would be an
executable (or mime type that gnome knows how to handle) that would
pop up a wizard and install all the RPMs for you.  I know the Gnome
installer and updater that Helix has written does something along
those lines, but an installer for Gnome could be useful for other
Gnome programs as well.  The user could just download the installer
and it would determine what distribution they are using (Redhat,
Debian, whatever), and install accordingly.  I'm probably not being
very coherent.  


----------------------------------------------------
Jamin Philip Gray
jgray writeme com
http://DoLinux.org/jamin/

Money talks.. but all mine ever says is 'GOODBYE'