Re: [gentoo-dev] Horrible package descriptions

[oford]

You *could* chase the URL.  That is the long description. :)

./Owen

On Thu, 2003-05-22 at 13:12, Vadim wrote:
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> I think that Gentoo needs some better way of describing packages. For example,
> on Debian there is a short and a long description, which will almost always
> explain what's the package for.
>
> Gentoo seems to have gems like this, though:
> *  net-print/apsfilter
>       Latest version available: 7.2.2
>       Latest version installed: 7.2.2
>       Size of downloaded files: 281 kB
>       Homepage:    http://www.apsfilter.org
>       Description: Apsfilter Prints So Fine, It Leads To Extraordinary Results
>
> And this one is not as bad but still not good:
> *  net-fs/samba
>       Latest version available: 2.2.8a
>       Latest version installed: 2.2.8a
>       Size of downloaded files: 4,466 kB
>       Homepage:    http://www.samba.org
>       Description: SAMBA is a suite of SMB and CIFS client/server programs for
> UNIX
>
>
> Okay, I realize that Gentoo isn't indended for newbies, but it's hard not to
> complain about that. I've been using computers for about 10 years, and Linux
> for maybe 3. And I have problems with both packages.
>
> I simply don't know what the heck does apsfilter do. Yeah, it prints, but
> what? Does it use CUPS or it's generic? If I install it, will I get more
> features in the KDE printing dialog, or it's invoked manually? If it "prints"
> maybe it's a printer driver? I have no idea. Note that even though the text
> above says I installed it, I did it just in case, and planning to figure out
> if it was useful or not later.
>
> About the same can be said for SAMBA. I know what it is, but I doubt I could
> find it if I was searching for it without knowing what it's called. Where are
> the references to the network (other than net-fs), Windows and file sharing?
> I'm pretty sure that there are quite a few Windows admins that have no idea
> of that the protocol is called SMB.
>
>
> My suggestion is to make a policy that says that package descriptions have to
> be actually descriptive. The apsfilter description may be "cute", but it's
> completely unhelpful at describing its purpose, or even allowing it to be
> found easily with 'emerge -S'.
>
> I think it would also be a good idea to add longer descriptions, like those
> that .deb and .rpm packages have.
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oford <oford@×××.net>


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