| Eric Wong 2004-09-05, 2:47 am |
| Steve Greenland <steveg@moregruel.net> wrote:
> On 04-Sep-04, 17:50 (CDT), Eric Wong <eric@petta-tech.com> wrote:
>
> Sigh. Here we go again.
>
> Virtual packages are not random groupings of related programs. Virtual
> packages are NOT keywords. Virtual packages are there so that other
> packages can Depend: on a generic interface, rather than a (varying)
> list of specific programs.
>
> Since MPD clients don't provide a generic interface usuable by other
> programs/packages, I don't see the point.
>
> What functionality would be usefully guaranteed by "Depend: mpd-client"
> in the control file?
Package: mpd
Suggests: mpd-client
mpd itself is fairly unusable[1] without an mpd-client somewhere on the
network mpd is running on. mpd is just a daemon that plays music,
there's no fancy user interface for it, just TCP/IP and audio output.
The daemon uses TCP/IP, which allows a variety of user interfaces to be
used with it, even from a variety of machines.
Users are expected to install an mpd-client like mpc, mpdcon.app, gmpc,
phpmp, or ncmpc to control mpd. I'm using Suggests: and not Depends:
because mpd and mpd-clients use TCP/IP, and don't necessarily run on the
same machine.
1 - of course, telnet and netcat can work, too, but that's unreasonable
for anybody but developers and masochists. (Wait, aren't they the same
group of people?)
--
Eric Wong
|