Comps/groups/tags-concepts [Was: FESCo Meeting Summary for 2008-10-29]

[Les Mikesell]

Seth Vidal wrote:
>>
>> If comps ends up with a thousand programs under Games and Entertainment,
>> another thousand under Graphical Internet, etc., it's even more 
>> useless than
>> having nothing in comps at all. What would be the point? On the other 
>> hand,
>> having a thousand small comps groups is also no good.
>>
> 
> So we're in the same boat if we start 'tagging' packages and/or if we 
> just group them (which is essentially tagging from the other direction).
> 
> 
> Let's take a step back. How do we group several thousand things such 
> that they don't make the avg user lose his/her mind to look at them.
> 
> do we need groups of groups? A tree hierarchy the user can drill 
> through? Font-sized tags like flickr/bloggers, etc?
> 
> I'm open to ideas, really. :)

The thing I've always wanted is:

Duplicate the installed packages on this other, existing machine
with options as to whether you want the same package versions or the 
currnt versions.

And done in a way where the existing machine publishes it's list so the 
person installing just picks the example instead of wading through the 
thousands of packages every time.

Bonus points for installing from the same repositories as the original 
packages...

This could replace the concept of 'spins' with a minimal install and a 
command that says 'make it like that one' that someone with some 
expertise has configured for a similar purpose.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com