[arch-general] Pacman, adding comments to the packages

[Marek Otahal]

Hi! 
that is a great idea. 

On Thursday 16 of August 2012 18:07:40 Chris Sakalis wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 5:30 PM, Karol Blazewicz
> <karol.blazewicz at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 4:27 PM, Joker-jar <jokerjar at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Hello, I propose to add the ability to add comments to the packages in
> >> pacman. For example, sometimes you need to install packages as a optional
> >> or makedepend. I always do it with --as-deps key. Later, when you run
> >> "pacman -Qdt" to see and cleanup orphan packages you can't distinguish
> >> really orphan packages and packages installed via the reasons,
> >> describedabove. In
> >> this case comments to the packages could be very useful. Sorry fo my
> >> english :)
> >
> > You should open a task in the bugtracker if there's no such request already.
I believe I've seen the issue somewhere on forums or bug tracker, can't find it now though. 
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=53788 metapax on aur seems it might do the job, but the 
download link is dead now.. 
> 
> Hello,
> just a suggestion. Wouldn't tracking which packages where installed as
> optional dependencies be better? There could be a --as-optdeps option
> for example.
I agree, my idea was: 
pacman -S --create-meta name [description] dependency[-version] [dep2 ...]

$ pacman -S --create-meta myproject pkg1 pkg2-1.3

which would call makepkg and create package named myproject with only 
pkgname=myproject
pkgdesc="blah"
depends=('pkg1','pkg2<=1.3')


Usecase: 
*nice handling of optdepends for packages you install
*handling of temporal projects: eg for school I work on several projects at once, 
say for music-work i need midi player, notation visualizer, mp32midi parser etc...all these 
have to be installed explicitly nowadays and after a month I don't know whatnot have been installed for the 
project and can be removed now. 
*cleaner system and explicitely installed pkgs: eg for a new cellphone, one wants a driver, filemanager, gps app etc - 
that all could be just in a my-android metapkg. 

Additional note:  A feature would be
pacman -S my-meta-pkg --add dep3
pacman -S my-meta-pkg --remove dep2


> 
> --Chris Sakalis
Will you set up the feature request on bugtracker or should I? 

Have a nice day, Mark

-- 

Marek Otahal :o)