On 04/23/10 13:20, Geert Hendrickx wrote:
On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 01:09:48PM +0000, Jens Rehsack wrote:I personally would prefer keeping the number of basically equivalent packages small and introduce some options there. Otherwise the amount of new packages switches from self-maintaining package list to search most fitting package.What's the benefit of options in a meta-package? If I want eg. Gnome and Firefox, I will simply install gnome-lite and firefox, rather than enabling the "firefox" option of the gnome-lite package.
The benefit should be, that all suggested dependencies are optional, so without any interaction, gnome-pkgsrc behaves like gnome-suggested. To stay at your example, you'll not have to "PKG_OPTIONS.gnome-pkgsrc=+firefox" but "PKG_OPTIONS.gnome-pkgsrc=-firefox" if you want to use another browser.
The goal of gnome-lite (or whatever the name) is just to save the users from having to scrape together the set of relevant libraries and tools themselves, not to be the one meta-pkg-to-rule-them-all.
Currently the users have not many choices: they can use the entire meta-pkg or use it not.
But introducing 5 new packages which differ slightly wouldn't make sense to me when 2 new packages and 2-3 options would do fine.
/Jens