[Mageia-dev] Importing RPM Groups

[andre999]

Samuel Verschelde a écrit :
>
> Le dimanche 9 janvier 2011 10:49:19, Remy CLOUARD a écrit :
>> Hi,
>>
>> I just imported the RPM Groups page into the wiki.
>>
>> I verified the list was complete with what rpmlint returns as valid RPM
>> groups.
>>
>> Maybe some groups are obsolete, others could be created
>>
>> Proposal for removal:
>> Graphical desktop/FVWM based (only one entry)
>> Graphical desktop/Sawfish (only one entry)
>>
>> Proposal for creation:
>> Development/Haskell
>> Development/OCaml
>> Graphical desktop/LXDE
>> Networking/Chat (merge with Instant Messaging)
>> Sound/Players (because listening to music and creating it is a very
>> different thing IMHO)
>> Sound/Editors
>> Sound/Other
>>
>> WDYT ?
>>
>> Regards,
>
> I think groups may need a bigger rework than just those changes.

Agreed.  Although it might not be a bad idea to start with these minor 
changes.

> To me,
> package groups should be as close as possible as menu entries (for graphical
> packages), but maybe that would be too few groups ?

I have long thought this as well.
And the menu system should accommodate console apps as well.  (Strictly 
speaking it does, but generally you have to add the entries yourself.)
Don't forget that the XDG menu system doesn't require a major GUI like 
Gnome or KDE, or even LXDE.  It could be presented by a console app.  It 
is basically just a tool to readily access (console or GUI) 
applications.  All the more reason to try to harmonize (in both 
directions) the presentation of packages for installation with the menu 
system.

> In fact, debian has some advance upon us on this, by the use of debtags. We
> could maybe simplify grouping if we could put some information in tags rather
> than in groups.

Right.  With multiple tags, we can more finely classify packages.
Particularly useful for such groups as network (internet in the menus), 
where a package -- such as Mozilla Seamonkey -- can be email / irc / 
file-transfer / www (as well as html editor) all at the same time. Those 
distinctions remain useful when looking for a package with a particular 
function.

However the user package tools (such as mageia-app-db and rpmdrake) 
should still present the packages by rpm group / tag, and not just rpm 
group, in order to present a more manageable number of packages.
Of course with this approach, a package with multiple tags will be 
presented in more than one location.  (That used to happen with RedHat 
installation cds.)

There could also be a mechanism to not separately present a group/tag 
catagory with less than a certain number of members (say 3), to avoid a 
too balkanized presentation.  So if only 1 or 2 members, it is merged 
with the parent category.  In the case of FVWM and Sawfish mentioned 
above, they would be presented directly in the desktop GUI group.

It occurs to me that there is essentially no difference between package 
groups and tags, except that a package can have multiple tags.
It might be useful to keep them separate on that basis - the package 
being required (or allowed ?) to specify exactly one group, and 
permitted to specify any number of tags.  Just a random thought.

> I don't know if there are cross-distributions efforts to harmonize package
> groups, but that would be an interesting subject to tackle in the upcoming
> meeting in Nürnberg.

Very good idea.  The more we can harmonize, the better for third-party 
packages, the end-user, and Linux in general.
(I'd like to see .rpm and .deb harmonized.)

> More questions than answers :)

Good questions lead to better answers :)

> Regards
>
> Samuel Verschelde

my 2 cents :)
-- 
André