>2. I know there has been much traffic about the interface, but I think the >best I've seen for this type of material is a nested list of packages. Start >the top with all packages, then go to stable, contrib, non-free... After that >break them down by group, i.e. admin, base, ... The thread that could tie all >of these together is the ability to make some of these disapear.
Yep that would be good. As I see it dselect/deity has three purposes. 1/ To install debian on a fresh system. This should be as simple and painless a process as possible. I would recommend sacrificing functionality for simplicity. This is *just* to get newbies installed and working. I'd do something like have 3 options. A developement box (nothing but baisc utilities and compilers), a network box (basic utilities and networking stuff, including prefered MTA and MUA etc) and a full install ( the two before plus X windows). 2/ To manage the packages that are installed or you want to be installed. This should be a nice friendly way of adding or removing packages. I think an X config option is overkill and would just go for a nice simple curses or slang interface... others may disagree... This is the meat of the program. It needs be easy enough to use by newbies (or relative newbies) but still have the advanced options that a power user would want. 3/ To upgrade your system to a new version of Debian. The basic option for this would download and then upgrade everypackage that was currently installed on your system. I favor the 'pine' method of making things easy. Ask questions all the time if they want to do somethign and allow the advanced user to turn all the *stupid* questions off. Adam. ----------------- Earthlight Communications Limited ---------------- P.O. Box 5301 Adam Shand (fax) +64 3 477 5463 Dunedin, New Zealand Systems Manager (voice) +64 3 479 0303 ---------------- http://www.earthlight.co.nz/larry/ ----------------
