Re: [Gnumed-devel] Re: bootstrap*

[Hilmar Berger]

Hi,
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Andreas Tille wrote:

>   2. Asking the user inside the postinstall script to type in
>      password.  This is really bad style.  Debian switched to
>      debhelper to do all configuration first and afterwards install
>      the whole system without interaction.  So I would hate a
>      new package with old style questions at the wrong time.

I agree that asking the user to enter whatever data while installing a
package might be considered ugly. I'm not quite sure in which state a
installed should be after installation.
It could be
a) all data on the harddisk, all configuration done, ready to run
or
b) all data on the harddisk, basic configuration done, ready to start
final config and costumization.

If we agreed to want case b), we could leave database setup to the
config/costumization process. This might use a GUI to setup database,
users etc. and could include a secure way to enter passwords (think of the
usual setup program that comes with any Windows software,or even with
OpenOffice). I believe that we need some config GUI/console tool to
costumize Gnumed, anyway. IMHO it is quite impossible to do the whole
setup in some none-interactive installation script, given the complexity
of Gnumed. I know that this could lead to problems in setups without a
graphical frontend. On the other hand, up to now Gnumed does not work
without a GUI. Those adhering to the TTY-only fraction might still use
some text-only interface.

Hilmar