[Pkg-octave-devel] Octave Package Meta-Package
Rafael Laboissiere
rafael at debian.org
Sun May 18 15:59:02 UTC 2008
* John W. Eaton <jwe at bevo.che.wisc.edu> [2008-05-18 10:36]:
> On 18-May-2008, Bill Denney wrote:
>
> | Would it be feasible to make a meta-package that depends on the current
> | version of all octave packages?
>
> I would prefer to avoid doing this.
Me too. I do not see the point in doing it. You can anyway obtain a similar
effect by doing:
apt-get install $(apt-cache search --names-only octave- | cut -d' ' -f1)
> But if you decide to do it, then please avoid including packages that
> replace core Octave functions, or at least avoid loading those packages by
> default. I think users should be aware that they are replacing core
> functions, otherwise, there is likely to be confusion when they get
> different results depending on whether they have some optional package
> installed. It seems likely that they won't even know that an optional
> package has been installed, or that a core function has been replaced.
I agree with John on the above, in principle. However, I just uploaded the
octave-nan package that overrides some core functions. I did patch the
package in order to have its functions autoloaded. As I explained in
previous thread [1] in this mailing list, I think that it is important in
Debian that packages "work" out of the box by default.
We might consider introducing a debconf question asking something like:
By installing this package (octave-nan), some core functions
of Octave will be overridden, unless you choose to not
autoload the functions.
Should the octave-nan functions be autoloaded (default: Yes)?
<Yes> <No>
This may be an overkill, though.
[1] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-octave-devel/2008-May/004195.html
--
Rafael
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