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I think that Gentoo needs some better way of describing packages. For example, |
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on Debian there is a short and a long description, which will almost always |
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explain what's the package for. |
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Gentoo seems to have gems like this, though: |
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* net-print/apsfilter |
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Latest version available: 7.2.2 |
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Latest version installed: 7.2.2 |
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Size of downloaded files: 281 kB |
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Homepage: http://www.apsfilter.org |
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Description: Apsfilter Prints So Fine, It Leads To Extraordinary Results |
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And this one is not as bad but still not good: |
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* net-fs/samba |
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Latest version available: 2.2.8a |
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Latest version installed: 2.2.8a |
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Size of downloaded files: 4,466 kB |
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Homepage: http://www.samba.org |
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Description: SAMBA is a suite of SMB and CIFS client/server programs for |
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UNIX |
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Okay, I realize that Gentoo isn't indended for newbies, but it's hard not to |
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complain about that. I've been using computers for about 10 years, and Linux |
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for maybe 3. And I have problems with both packages. |
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I simply don't know what the heck does apsfilter do. Yeah, it prints, but |
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what? Does it use CUPS or it's generic? If I install it, will I get more |
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features in the KDE printing dialog, or it's invoked manually? If it "prints" |
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maybe it's a printer driver? I have no idea. Note that even though the text |
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above says I installed it, I did it just in case, and planning to figure out |
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if it was useful or not later. |
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About the same can be said for SAMBA. I know what it is, but I doubt I could |
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find it if I was searching for it without knowing what it's called. Where are |
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the references to the network (other than net-fs), Windows and file sharing? |
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I'm pretty sure that there are quite a few Windows admins that have no idea |
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of that the protocol is called SMB. |
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My suggestion is to make a policy that says that package descriptions have to |
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be actually descriptive. The apsfilter description may be "cute", but it's |
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completely unhelpful at describing its purpose, or even allowing it to be |
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found easily with 'emerge -S'. |
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I think it would also be a good idea to add longer descriptions, like those |
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that .deb and .rpm packages have. |
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