[Debian-hebrew-common] user-he package - a few issues for discussion.

[Shlomi Loubaton]

Hi

On 12/16/05, Lior Kaplan <kaplanlior at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'd like to discuss several issues about the user-he package (previous
> name was debian-hebrew).
>
> Current state:
> The package has a script that adds Hebrew support for the system, and
> makes the interface to be in Hebrew. The package itself depends on lots
> of other packages related to hebrew (KDE, Firefox and OO.org hebrew
> support packages) and other software like hsepll, geresh, katoob, mlterm...
>
> The issues:
> 1. I'd prefer to default operation of the script would be to add Hebrew
> support, but not to change the interface (Hebrew enabled system). This
> mean that the script would reconfigure the locales to add he_IL.UTF-8
> (but won't set it as the default), and set the Hebrew keyboard in the X
> server.

I think I would expect such behaviour from such package.

> 2. Since the interface is left in English (or any other non Hebrew
> language), I don't think the package should depends on packages that add
> Hebrew interface only (mozilla-firefox-locale-he-il,
> mozilla-firefox-theme-rtlclassic, kde-i18n-he, koffice-i18n-he).
>
> 3. I don't think we should depends on all of the hebrew-related packages
> but only on the package we must have for Hebrew support. I think culmus
> and ttf-freefont are the only ones.
>
> 4. All the other packages can be installed by script which simply do
> apt-get install. For example: hebrew-packages.sh with kde as argument
> would install kde-i18n-he, koffice-i18n-he, kkbswitch.
>
> What say you ?

I wouldn't expect such package to depend on all those, maybe to
recommend them. Adding a script to install different sets of packages
doesn't sound like the "Debian way" to me (is there an example in
official Debian repository that does something like that?). but how
about splitting the package to :

user-he  - just configure and set locales + minimum packages needed
(culmus, ttf-freefont)

user-he-extras - additional package for better Hebrew support
(culmus-fancy,hspell,geresh, mlterm)

user-he-mozilla  - install all hebrew-mozilla related packages
(mozilla-firefox-locale-he-il, mozilla-firefox-theme-rtlclassic)

user-he-kde - .. hebrew kde related (kde-i18n-he, koffice-i18n-he, kkbswitch)

user-he-gnome - .. hebrew gnome related packages.

( ... the packages i listed are just an example. Please comment on the concept)

Shlomi.