I strongly prefer the second choice. It's much simpler and doesn't differ much from the current way of installing optional packages. Then we'll have this: 1) pacman -S gnome (or any other group or big package with many depends) (optional) pacman asks for each package in group 2) pacman lists all packages that are going to be installed 3) pacman installs those packages, displaying post_install messages if they exist, i.e.: installing foobar... :: foobar can make use of following packages if present: :: python-libnotify - systray popups support :: libfoo - blah-blah-blah 4) pacman notices uses=(python-libnotify libfoo) in package info and prints: Install python-libnotify [y/N]? y Install libfoo [y/N]? 5) now installation of package is fully finished, pacman writes to local db entry: %USES% python-libnotify !libfoo so it knows that python-libnotify was selected by user and libfoo wasn't.
Be careful with this one. One of the reasons Judd preferred pacman's methods over dpkg is because it doesn't ask you anything after it starts downloading. I wasn't so sold on the idea when I first moved over to Arch, but I now prefer non-interactive updates to interactive ones. If I walk away after I've said the last 'y' to start downloading, I know that the install will probably be done when I get back. Using something like dpkg, I may have installed only one package and have to wait longer. Prompting during install: -1 Jason