Re: [Dragora-users] dragora-installer: Package selection menus in Expert mode

[Michael Siegel]

Am 17.11.19 um 19:45 schrieb Matias Fonzo:
> Hi Michael,
> 
> I don’t understand, isn’t this what the installer already does?.
> 
> Packege selection in Expert mode occurs for each series, including
> subcategories such as for "modules/" or "xorg/".  The category to which
> each package belongs is reflected in the menu titles (of each series
> selection).  If there is a subcategory it is composed as "series
> name/subcategory name".

Ok, maybe, let me compare that to an Expert installation in Slackware to
provide a better picture of the problem I see here.

In Slackware, there are 16 software series, each of them represented by
a single directory without subdirectories in the distribution's package
tree. So, in Slackware, the package tree structure matches the structure
of the software series selection menu.

This means that, in Expert mode, you'll have to go through 16 package
selection menus, exactly as you would expect from the software series
selection menu having 16 entries.

Now, in Dragora, that's quite different. You have 19 items in the
software series selection menu, with no indication of there being
subdirectories (subseries) in the package tree. But then, the installer
will show a package selection menu for every directory and subdirectory
in the package tree that contains package files (instead of just showing
a menu for every entry in the software series menu). This leads to
having to step through a total number of 42 menus (if I counted
correctly) when you do an Expert installation of Dragora. My argument
is: It should be 19, even though there are subdirectories in the package
tree. Because everything else is quite counter-intuitive and irritating.

The most confusing thing with the current installer in Expert mode is
that if you're done running through all the directories and
subdirectories of, e.g., the “i586” tree, the installer will jump into
the “noarch” directory an present you with another nine package
selection menus, one for every subdirectory in “noarch”. So, you're
going go through “boot”, “data”, “devel” etc. again to select the
architecture-indepenent packages belonging to those series.

I think there is a need to map the structure of the Dragora package tree
to only 19 package selection menus in a reasonable way. And that was
what my suggestion was about. It was meant to provide an example layout
of the package selection menu for the “modules” series, containing all
packages from all subdirectories in that series, but in a clearly
structured way, making subseries visible without the need to have a
separate menu for each and every one of them.

Thinking about it again, it would be even better to make subseries
themselves (de-)selectable, not just the individual packages, e.g.:

  ---- Modules ----

  [*] -- Perl --
    [*] Perl package 1
    [*] Perl package 2
    [*] Perl package n

  [*] -- Python --
    [*] Python package 1
    [*] Python package 2
    [*] Python package n

  [*] -- Ruby --
    [*] Ruby package 1
    [*] Ruby package 2
    [*] Ruby package n



> El 2019-11-17 13:41, Michael Siegel escribió:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I've found the following issue with the Expert installation mode:
>>
>> The software series selection menu currently holds 19 items, so there
>> would, logically, be 19 package selection menus to go through when
>> performing an Expert-mode installation (if you don't de-select any of
>> the series right away).
>>
>> However, there are currently roughly about twice as many package
>> selection menus as there are software series. Apparently, this is
>> because some of those 19 series are subdivided into smaller portions.
>> For example, the “modules” series contains the subdirectories “perl”,
>> “python” and “ruby”. So, it seems that the number of package selection
>> menus corresponds to the number of directories in Dragora's package tree
>> rather than to the number of software series. This is quite confusing
>> and should be handled differently.
>>
>> The best solution would be to have the number of package selection menus
>> equal the number of software series, but preserve meaningful subdivision
>> of series in the package selection menus. The easiest way to do that
>> would probably be to divide, e.g., the package selection menu for
>> “modules” into three different sections, somewhat like this:
>>
>>   -- Perl --
>>
>>   [*] Perl package 1
>>   [*] Perl package 2
>>   [*] Perl package n
>>
>>   -- Python --
>>
>>   [*] Python package 1
>>   [*] Python package 2
>>   [*] Python package n
>>
>>   -- Ruby --
>>
>>   [*] Ruby package 1
>>   [*] Ruby package 2
>>   [*] Ruby package n
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>>
>> Best
>> --msi
>