Suggestion for posts to "New Packages"

red_over_blue · 2003-09-01 19:03:55

I think the "incoming" aspect of Arch is what really sets it apart from other distros. I think it is great! Anyway... on to my suggestion.

I think it would be beneficial to everyone if when a new package was announced on these forums, ala "thisnewpackage is in incoming" that the inidividual making the post pasted the first few fields of the PKGBUILD as the first part of the post.

The reason for this is that it contains all relevent info for someone to look up the package, or at least know what it is. Here is an example from PyQt that I posted:

pkgname=PyQt
pkgver=3.8
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="PyQt is a set of Python bindings for the Qt toolkit"
url="http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/pyqt/index.php"

As you can see, it is exactly the info that someone that was unfamiliar with the software would need to research it further themselves.

Anyway... this is just a suggestion, but I think it would create a little more structure to the "incoming" posts, and would not be time consuming or difficult for the poster.

What do you think?

PS - if people seem to like this idea, perhaps we could make a sticky in the New Packages section of the forum.

red_over_blue · 2003-09-01 19:50:16

Just another thought... it might even be useful just to paste the entire PKBUILD text as the first part of the post. This would serve three purposes:

1. The first fields up to "url=....." would provide info for users unfamiliar with software (as per my previous post)

2. Users would be able to see how it was built and if it suites their needs (ie, built with/without Alsa, etc). Then, if someone wanted the package but wanted it tweeked, they wouldn't have to download the entire package just to get to the PKGBUILD, they could just copy/paste the PKBUILD and customize from there.

3. Probably this most important reason for posting the entire PKBUILD text -> peer review. The ability for the Arch community to see in advance the PKBUILD text and make comments/suggestions would only improve the quality of the packages being uploaded to incoming. I would certainly appreciate any comments anyone has on the packages I have submitted so far. These comments could be as subtle as missing dependencies in the dependency field to more critical things that may be sacrificing stability/useability.

Again, this is just a suggestion, but I only make it in the interest of improving the quality of the already fabulous collection of Arch packages.

contrasutra · 2003-09-02 01:46:41

I absolutly agree. The whole PKGBUILD along with other install scripts should be posted.

For example, I was interested to see how the Firebird package was built with the "wrapper" script, but I didn't want to download 10MB on my dialup.

rasat · 2003-09-02 03:28:14

red_over_blue wrote:

I think the "incoming" aspect of Arch is what really sets it apart from other distros.

To help this idea to grow and to become nicely implemented, I added here a link of related topic on "General Discussion".

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=1139

Arch Linux

#1 2003-09-01 19:03:55

Suggestion for posts to "New Packages"

#2 2003-09-01 19:50:16

Re: Suggestion for posts to "New Packages"

#3 2003-09-02 01:46:41

Re: Suggestion for posts to "New Packages"

#4 2003-09-02 03:28:14

Re: Suggestion for posts to "New Packages"

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