Source: blends Version: 0.6.94 Severity: serious Tags: d-i Justification: Policy 2.5 and breaking another package
Hi,
I'm sorry, but the current implementation of installing Blends from Debian
images is simply not acceptable, as in, it completely breaks the UI of
debian-installer thus the severity. (It's also an unacceptable policy
violation, see below.)
For those wondering what the current implementation looks like, have a look at
https://lists.debian.org/debian-blends/2016/05/pngVVl6XLXLxZ.png
In words: several blends have been added to the tasksel menu (the one which
asks which tasks should be installed, "default", "standard", "desktop",
"ssh-server", etc.)
The ascii version of the above linked screenshot looks like this:
--begin--
At the moment, only the core of the system is installed. To tune the system to
your needs, you can
choose to install one or more of the following predefined collections of
software.
Choon software to install.'
o webserver _
0 printserver
O SSHserver
0 standard system utilities
O Debian Pure Blends
o Deb;
O. DebianEdu
O. DebianEzGa
O. DebianGames
O. DebianGIS
O. Hamradia
O. DebianJunior
O. DebianMed
O. DebianMultimedia
O ... Debian Science
-- end --
This aint acceptable for a debian-installer for the reasons laid out in
#758116.
Look for those two mails from bubulle in that bug, they explain very well,
that+why
the current implementation is a *no go*:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=758116#320
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=758116#340
Technically this was implemented by setting the binary package blends-tasks to
prio: important, which needs to be reverted to fix the current tasksel mess.
Also, setting blends-tasks to priority:important is a policy violation, please
read https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#s-priorities
- packages with priority:important are installed by default, and there is
*no* need (as it doesnt make sense, it's not useful) to have blends-tasks
installed by default on each and every Debian system.
(I'm sorry if describing
https://lists.debian.org/debian-blends/2016/05/pngVVl6XLXLxZ.png
as a mess hurts some people. I dont know a better way to put it.)
So how to fix this *and* allow Debian blends be installed easily from
official Debian media?
My idea to implement official Debian which can be used to install blends is to
introduce "flavors" (or spins or whatever, just a new term, to not overload old
ones), which basically are themed netinstall images.
For illustration, these are some netinstall image _flavors_/_spins_ I have in
mind:
debian-classic / textmode d-i
debian-graphical installer
blends selection (graphical)
debian-edu blend (graphical)
debian-parl blend (graphical)
debian-speakup (textmode d-i with speech enabled by default)
…
The idea is, that these images have the *same features* (and packages), the
differences are just which the preselected default in the boot menu.
So they all have the same boot menu too, and it's possible to install each
and every flavor by manually choosing a different boot menu.
This has several benefits:
- it's possible to tell people "download $this iso to install $this type of
Debian"
- without giving them congnitive stress by presenting them choices they dont
understand
- the boot menu is also not translatetable, so having choices there wont help
many users.
- this can be implemented for stretch. Major changes (especially ones
requiring translations) are not likely to happen anymore, so this is one
way to have official Debian blends images *at all*. (As said, the current
implementation is not acceptable.)
- the current implementation is also useless for Debian Edu and at least
very inconvinient for other "non-standalone" blends (those who also need the
desktop task to be installed), not all blends are self contained. Debian
Edu OTOH is blend which comes in several variations. (see
https://jenkins.debian.net/userContent/debian-edu-doc/debian-edu-doc-en/debian-edu-stretch-manual-images/08-Choose_Debian_Edu_profile.png
to understand that "one type of Debian Edu installs" is not enough.)
The actual implementation of this will need to be done in debian-cd.git
where the boot menu for netinst images is definied.
For debian-edu it's probably enough to add a commandline parameter like this:
preseed/early_command="anna-install debian-edu-profile-udeb"
For blends-tasks it's probably enough to add a commandline parameter like this:
preseed/late_command="apt install -y blends-tasks"
(or probably better to turn blends-tasks into an udeb…)
To track and implement this, I will clone this bug and reassign the clone to
debian-cd (and then maybe file some more for some blends I care about).
Actually, no, I will file a new bug using only half of the text of this bug :)
I also plan to NMU blends-dev to set blends-tasks back to priority:optional,
probably on Thursday or Friday this week. (To give some time to discussion,
but soon, to not let this slip for to long.) - and I'll make this change in
blends-dev.git right away.
--
cheers,
Holger
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