base-config

[Enrico Zini]

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On Wed, Apr 09, 2003 at 01:41:22PM +0200, Marcus Moeller wrote:

> first I want to tell a little about myself. My name is Marcus Moeller
> and I am developing a Debian based Distribution that fit's on a 180 MB
> CD. It's called miniwoody.

Yep, I didn't introduce myself: I'm a student in computer science nearly
at the end of my career, working on HCI for my final thesis.  Debian
usability has nothing to do with my thesis, but I think it's a very
important and interesting thing to work with.


> The problem is that Debian is not really made for Desktop installation,
> and someone who want's to install a server is not willed to be asked
> questions like this.
>=20
> So the there has to be a possibility to decide whereever you wan't to
> install the system on. Do you wan't to install a server / desktop / or
> something completely different?
>=20
> Perhaps taskselect could be used as basement for that. But I don't like
> the way of using special override files. I would prefer something like a
> 'software database' where software the the user want's to install is
> stored.

If you are looking for the list of the software the user wants to
install, you can use dpkg --get-selections.  From that list, you can use
some euristics and try to deduce what kind of system the user wants: if
there's Gnome and OpenOffice, you might guess it's a desktop system, and
ask desktop-specific questions.

However, I'd use extra care in doing too smart things with the main
Debian, because you can't really predict all the kind of users you could
have.  That's the resason metadistros/subprojects/flavours seem to be a
good thing: they're a specialization of Debian that targets a specific
community.  In that way, you know your target and you can be smart.

If you want to do smart things inside the main Debian, you should
consider making them optional.  If you make them optional, you could put
them in a separate package.  You could then make a smart-desktop package
that depends on hardware detection and magicfilter, asks your useful
desktop related questions and then does the right thing.


Enrico

--
GPG key: 1024D/797EBFAB 2000-12-05 Enrico Zini <enrico@debian.org>

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