[pacman-dev] Alternatives system brainstorm

[Daan van Rossum]

* on Saturday, 2019-10-19 22:43 +1000, Allan McRae <allan at archlinux.org> wrote:

> $ pacman -S b
> resolving dependencies...
> :: There are 2 providers available for foo:
> :: Repository test
>    1) a-foo  2) b-foo
> 
> Enter a number (default=1):
> 
> It just picks the wrong one by default...

Maybe pacman can print additional information to help the user choose between the options, such as the number of additional dependencies each of the choices would pull in (recursively), or even press a certain key to list those dependencies.  The options could then also be sorted by this number instead of alphabetically.

This still leaves the issue that default providers are not specified for a base install and that the user gets asked about sh-bash, awk-gawk, cc-gcc.  Even with sensible ordering, the user would have to press "enter" three times...
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