How important is comps.xml to us these days? Which packages should be in comps.xml and which not?

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

On 21.09.2008 19:05, Tim Lauridsen wrote:
> Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>> On 21.09.2008 14:25, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>>> On 20.09.2008 22:00, Kevin Kofler wrote:
>>>> Rahul Sundaram <sundaram <at> fedoraproject.org> writes:
>>>>> PackageKit does use it via the yum backend.
>>> One more reason for us then to make sure everything a user might want 
>>> to select is in comps.xml, isn't it?
>>>>> http://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2008/09/19/packagekit-collections/
>>>> Note that this is only from 0.3.3 on.
>>> /me looks at rawhide and finds 0.3.2
>>> /me grabs 0.3.3 straight from koji
>>> /me fails to get it to work on F9 (likely my fault) :-/
>> Updating yum as well did the trick.
>>
>>> Hmm. From the screenshot it's hard to see if gpk-application exports 
>>> the package groups from comps.xml similar to how pirut/anaconda do. 
>>> But seems to be different, which would be a important detail for the 
>>> decision how to maintain the comps.xml in Fedora...
>> Seems to be way different. In pirut/anaconda you in F9 for example can 
>> select the group "GNOME Desktop Environment"; then you can hit the 
>> "details" button and select some more packages from the gnome group or 
>> deselect some other you don't want. Seems that's not possible in 
>> gpk-application right now. Not sure if it should, but that's quite and 
>> important detail when if comes to the "how to maintain comps.xml 
>> properly" question.
> The groups in comps.xml is used as meta-packages, there can be installed 
> and removed. just like yum groupinstall/groupremove.

Yeah, but that will only install (or remove?) packages that are 
'<packagereq type="default">' in the comps file, correct?

> Ex. you can install KDE by installing the kde-desktop meta-package.
> All the meta-packages (comps groups) are located under collections.
> The categories is not used in pk-application.

IOW: adding packages to a group in comps.xml as '<packagereq 
type="optional">' is only worth the trouble if you want to make the 
package selectable in anaconda, as that information is not used by 
pk-application. Correct?

CU
knurd