dselect?

karavite

karavite

Registered
Dumb newby question here - just what is dselect, and should I use it to install packages? I read the man page (still getting used to those) and I understand it is a package installer, but I keep thinking it is related to fink. What is the difference between using dselect to install - let's say - enlightenment vs. doing a "fink install enlightenment"?

Also, if I installed software via other means, will dselect "know" this?

One last question - I am afraid to use dselect because it seems to list important packages with a status of remove - though I cannot for the life of me ever remember telling it to remove anything (like xfree stuff) - any way to "reset" dselect to not seem to want to do so many scary changes?
 
I recommend you definitely try dselect. It makes managing packages so much easier. It's just a pretty front-end for the other fink tools, such as apt-get, and yes it knows all about what you've done so far. Read its built-in help for instructions on use. They're very straightforward.

If the status of a given package is "remove" and you want to keep it then just highlight the package and press the + key and the package will be retained. And if you don't like changes you've made in the package list you can always press shift-Q to cancel the changes.
 
Boy, if dselect is your idea of a pretty front end, then please don't ever set me up on a blind date! :D (I'm kidding and I appreciate your reply).

Okay, my only concern is there is so much listed as 'remove' on dselect - I started using it before I knew what I was doing, and now I only know about 1/4 of what I am doing - I have a nice stable X environment and I don't want to screw it up. However, the best way to learn is by screwing something up and I'll give it a shot. Maybe this should be a new thread (or is already covered), but what directories should I back up in order to preserve my current XWindows stuff? Or is this opening a whole other can of worms?
 
You shouldn't need to back anything up to retain your settings as they're stored outside of the region fink uses to install the packages themselves. For example your X session settings are stored in your home directory as ~/.xinitrc. Fink was designed to make upgrades as painless and fear-free as possible.

As an aside, I have heard a lot of talk on the fink list about making prettier front-ends for fink using an Aqua GUI but so far no one seems to be skilled enough to accomplish this noble ambition, so for the moment dselect is as "pretty" as it gets. :rolleyes:
 
Why is dselect showing things I installed by fink and can run as not installed - fnlib, enlightenment..., emacs...? Sorry, but thi sjust doesn't make sense to me yet.
 
Sounds like dselect does a little extra stuff to keep track of the packages that it installs. I would have thought it would simply look through a common database used by both the fink command and the dselect command. Try installing a few items through dselect and see what happens.
 
I appreciate all your help slur - can you or anyone tell me what the heck this means? I ran dselect and after choosing Update (I'm sure this is what I did but can't repeat it:

Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
bluefish dia emacs enlightenment fnlib gdk-pixbuf gimp gnome-libs icewm
imlib windowmaker wmcalclock wmmoonclock xchat
The following NEW packages will be installed:
cpio curl ddd dict diffutils findutils flex frotz fvwm-icons gawk gdbm
gnome-audio gnome-user-docs grep guile indent less lesstif libogg libpcap
librep libtool libvorbis libwww mutt mysql nedit netcat ntaim passwd patch
pcre pkgconfig popt scrollkeeper sed slang system-libgl texinfo textutils
type1inst wget xless
0 packages upgraded, 43 newly installed, 14 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 8387kB/38.8MB of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

I entered "n" of course.
 
That message indicates what dselect believes the differences are between its database of installed packages and those that you changed in its list. So if you made no changes in the package list in dselect then those messages may be based on some information it's getting from Fink. In other words, it looks to me as if Fink and dselect do in fact share some information, but it seems to be incomplete.

Do you see those same packages in the list in dselect? The ones it says would be REMOVED should show up in the dselect list as being installed, marked for removal. The NEW ones should be listed as not-installed, marked for installation.

The safest procedure would be to choose Select in dselect, mark EVERY SINGLE PACKAGE to be removed (-), ignoring dependencies for the moment. Then - without leaving the Select screen - go back and mark all the required packages and all the packages you know you've installed through Fink as items you want to install (+). This will set up parity in dselect with your system as you know it currently stands.

When you're all done setting up the list in dselect the way you want it go to the Install step. Because (it seems) dselect doesn't seem to know about the Fink installs it will certainly want to download some things again, and it may say it wants to delete some things that you know you don't have. Let it do what it wants, and in some cases you'll get newer versions anyway. If you have a fast connection you should have to wait no more than 40 minutes for all downloads to complete. Much less if you don't use X-Windows.

At the end of it you'll have all the packages you want, none that you don't, and your settings will have been preserved, because when packages are removed all the configurations are left behind. Next time you run dselect you'll be able to make full use of it.
 
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