desktop-packages team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Iain, thanks for this bug report, and sorry for the slow response.

You say that for Smuxi, "Other functionality is provided by separate
packages". What packages in particular are you referring to? As far as I
can see, you're probably referring to smuxi-engine-irc and smuxi-engine-
twitter. It would make sense for at least the latter to show up as an
add-on for "Smuxi IRC Client" (smuxi-frontend-gnome), but it doesn't.
That's easily fixed in the Smuxi packaging, so I've reported that as bug
844742.

Do you have any other examples of how metapackages would be useful?

** Changed in: software-center (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Incomplete

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/647202

Title:
  Support for metapackages

Status in “software-center” package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: software-center

  Package maintainers often create metapackages to make installation of
  groups of related packages easier for end-users. This is often the
  case when an application is split up into several smaller packages to
  provide more granularity, but a sensible default is desirable.

  The software center currently uses the presence of .desktop files (via
  app-install-data?) to decide which packages to show to users. This can
  in some circumstances be insufficient. Metapackages should also be
  shown.

  The example I was just made aware of is smuxi. The desktop file and
  binary are contained within a package (smuxi-frontend-gnome), which is
  offered up by software-center to users. Other functionality is
  provided by separate packages, however. While some of these are
  recommends of -gnome, not all are. Furthermore, the package provides a
  smuxi metapackage which is supposed to be the most common way of
  obtaining the packages as it provides the most complete user
  experience.

  software-center should detect and display metapackages in addition to
  the current .desktop file method. A metapackage can be detected by (a
  combination of) two heuristics: the word `metapackage' or `meta
  package' in the description, and the package only having files in
  /usr/share/doc. This is the approach taken by other tools in use, such
  as Lintian.

  Thanks,
  Iain

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