Re: GNOME Install Wizard?

["Jesse D. Sightler" <jsight mindspring com>]

james-gnome@tainted.org wrote:
> > plain incompatible RPMs, rpm -Uvh ought to always fall-back to rpm -ivh
> 
> I'm not sure I understand (not that this is the place to go on at great
> length about it), but rpm -Uvh will fallback to -ivh if the package
> isn't installed.

Basically, I just think that dependency resolution ought to be more
automated.  AFAIK, even in GnoRPM the user must make the decision as to
whether or not a package should be "Upgraded" or "Installed".  With
shared libraries, this issue can be somewhat confusing.  It would be
nice if it could not just convert an upgrade on a shlib to a install if
no package is installed, but also if the old version is actually still
needed.  Probably a minor complaint, though, now that I think about it.

But I sure remember it causing newbies problems with GTK-1.0 vs. GTK-1.1
for a while.  :-)

> > Um, cute, but NO!  :)  Should we also have a "dangerous rm" command?  Or
> > hows about a "dangerous" fdisk command?  :)  If the user is intelligent
> 
> Heh, sorry, I got a little carried away but I think you catch my point.
> A user should be made aware that using --force or --nodeps is only for
> advanced users.   There used to be the understanding that "if you're
> root, you must know what you're doing"; for whatever reason (good or
> bad), that's no longer true - and needs to be delt with.

Agreed.  Users should have a health respect for the dangers of running
the system as root.

> > AFAIK, debian already supports these pre-install and post-install
> > scripts, and will even let you postpone the post-install indefinately,
> 
> RPM supports pre-install and post-install scripts too, however there's
> no well defined mechanism for interacting with the package (abstracted
> user interaction).

I still don't know enough about .deb to know how well their post-install
configuration handling is defined, but I doubt that it is really optimal
either.

> > If the distribution system were as slick as .deb, this wouldn't be
> > necessary.  :)  Just give it the URL of package list, and select
> > "Gnome-1.0-task" and it automagically makes everything work.
> 
> There are benefits to both ways.  Your way an external app figures out
> all of what is needed and goes and gets it all.   The "Packaged RPM"
> idea, the file you have downloaded has all of the well understood
> dependencies built into it.

Dselect uses something vaguely similar.  Instead of the directory just
being a pile of .deb files, it also includes a "Packages.tgz" file, or
something similar that includes the package list, dependencies, and
package information.  IMO, this gives the benefits of the "Packaged
RPM", without the downside of requiring the user to always download a 40
meg file, 38 of which could well be libraries that you may or may not
need.:)  

Of course, the downside of the debian way is that it doesn't give the
user an easy way to just download the RPM from a browser and install
later as easily.  I guess both sides have their good/bad points here.

> > Well, ORBit came from GNOME, and it is not a Gnome specific project.
> > Why shouldn't this come about the same way?  HEheh, now that I think
> > about it, CORBA bindings might be cool.  :)
> 
> There are groups focusing on how to install stuff on your system (the
> freebsd pkg guys, the debian dselect guys, red hat's rpm guys), I think
> our cycles would be better spent assisting their projects than creating
> Yet Another Standard For Installing Stuff.

Well, certainly.  I would hate to see a big announcement for SDGPM
(Super Duper Gnome Package Management) anytime soon.  :)  But, I do
think that the RightWay(TM) to do post-install scripts is to support
some sort of questioning format that will allow graphical installers to
provide a clean wizard-like interface.  Obviously, some of those will be
Gnome-based, so there is a certain amount of overlap with Gnome work.  I
hope that's true anyway.  :)

-- 
---------------
Jesse D. Sightler
http://www3.pair.com/jsight/

"Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead." 
      - Chinese Proverb