Excessive package interdependency

[Chris Ricker]

On Thu, 18 Dec 2003, Chris Adams wrote:

> Once upon a time, Alan Cox <alan at redhat.com> said:
> > You also want to remember bundles (or guess them for old setups), so that
> > you can say "has gnome" ok now in FC2 gnome has added x and y, stick up a
> > "The package groups you have selected have been expanded in this release,
> >  shall I also installl..."
> 
> If there was a "Gnome-Package-fc1-1.rpm" that provided nothing but
> "GNOME" and required all the core gnome RPMs, then when FC2 came out and
> "Gnome-Package-fc2-1.rpm" required the new set of core gnome RPMs, this
> would be automatic (then there could be Gnome-Games, Gnome-Apps,
> Gnome-Devel, KDE, KDE-Apps, etc.).
> 
> I know the "virtual package" idea has been tossed around before.  I
> think it is a good idea; it handles this without additional software or
> config files or anything.

I like virtual packages, but another idea which gives the same functionality 
would be a text interface to redhat-config-packages.... The broad categories 
in that are the same granularity as virtual packages.

later,
chris