Excessive package interdependency

[Tyler larson]

On Thu, 2003-12-18 at 14:56, Jeremy Katz wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-12-18 at 15:42 -0600, Chris Adams wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> No it doesn't.  Because people are now complaining that they have GNOME
> with nautilus-cd-burner -- so they end up having to remove the GNOME
> metapackage to remove nautilus-cd-burner and then they lose every
> benefit of having it.  It works just as poorly as dependencies and is
> far less fine-grained which makes it far inferior in my opinion.
> 
> Jeremy
> 

I think the idea *does* have potential, but it's just currently
incomplete. I would suspect that the ideal arrangement would be a sort
of hierarchical package structure: Gnome contains Nautilus contains
nautilus-cd-burner. When selecting packages to install, the user selects
Gnome and all the default sub-categories get selected as well. He checks
"Details" for Gnome and sees Nautilus selected. He drills down further
to "Details" for Nautilus and finds nautilus-cd-burner selected. He
clears the checkbox and suddenly finds himself at peace.

I hate to admit it, but Microsoft has been doing this for years. It
offers maximum flexibility without presenting the user with too many
choices at once. Probably the biggest difficulty in this arrangement is
maintaining the XML file.