Olaf van der Spek wrote: > Thijs Kinkhorst wrote: > >> But is there a real advantage? > >> Are there really people that install phpmyadmin but don't have a > >> webserver installed and then have no clue what's wrong? > > > > Perhaps they have a clue what to do but they would need to take another > > action. I think we should optimise for the default case to work well and > > with as few steps as possible. > > Maybe, but you also don't want to do this work for every single PHP > app pkg. It's essentially a code duplication issue.
I didn't follow and don't think it was obvious. What work is needed to be duplicated for every php package? > >>>> Having every single web app list httpd pkgs, PHP pkgs and even > >>>> www-browser doesn't seem useful to me. The Suggests: (or any other association) with www-browser does seem a little silly to me. I don't think any situation exists where a user would not to have a web browser installed but need help in knowing that they need a web browser installed. But as a Suggests: it is safe and innocuous. Whether it is there or not shouldn't matter. And if the user already has a www-browser installed then it doesn't show up in the "nag" area. But silly. Also, apachectl itself needs lynx (www-browser) for dumping status. So that seems to me that apache2 should at least Suggest www-browser or lynx-cur. See 'apachectl status' for details. > >> I wanted to install phpmyadmin and was surprised it wanted to pull in > >> apache2. > >> It's not a real problem, it just struck me as odd. Especially since I > >> intended to use Lighttpd. > > > > Apache2 is indeed the default web server. However, I think your scenario > > just works if you either have lighttpd already installed or if you specify > > phpmyadmin and lighttpd both on the command line. > > Yeah, in that case it'd work just fine. Unless I hit Enter and install > Apache by accident. In the case of alternatives the default must be the default. It will be chosen when you hit Enter. There is no other way. What other possibility is there? I think apache2 is a good default. I can't see picking a different one from the available alternatives for a default or there would be a lot of bug reports in reverse. When there is a series of alternatives and you want one of them in particular the normal thing is to install the specific alternative that you want. This should be done either first or along with. For example if you want lighttpd specifically instead of the default apache2 then it can be installed along with phpmyadmin by installing both of those together. apt-get install lighttpd apt-get install phpmyadmin OR: apt-get install lighttpd phpmyadmin In one action you can specify both to install phpmyadmin and also to select your preferred web server too. Doing this in the opposite order still "works". This works fine. apt-get install phpmyadmin apt-get install lighttpd But it has the disadvantage of having apache2 files installed but not purged in the "rc" status. The configuration files remain behind. It is possible to specify --purge along with install in that case. apt-get install --purge lighttpd If APT's package solution is okay (you agree and press 'Y') then when apache2 is removed it will be purged and no configuration files will remain. (I do this option often when converting from a default system exim4 install to postfix for example.) It is inefficient to install and then purge but should be fully functional regardless. To avoid the inefficiency lighttpd would need to be installed along with or before. In any case I am not sure there is anything more that phpmyadmin can do in the package control file to improve the situation. (Other than possibly removing the Suggests: of www-browser entirely which is quite minor either way.) Bob -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
