Hello, On 2022-05-24 10:55, Simon Lees wrote:
Patterns are just meta packages with extra, if we wanted a user to be able to select "Wifi" from the advanced software selection in the installer then having a "wifi" pattern require it would be the easiest way. If we think that yast or maybe even zypper should be able to figure this out on its own based off the fact there is a wifi adapter present a pattern might be overkill given it carries extra metadata + an icon.
I think patterns are needed in any case to have one single generic method to let the user configure what software is wanted. If there are hardcoded package install automatisms outside of RPM it works again against the user because the user cannot choose to not get that software installed. In this particular example think about a computer with a WiFi adapter but for some reason the user does not want to use WiFi or must not use WiFi (e.g. it may be forbidden to use WiFi on that computer because of whatever restrictions in the environment where that computer is used) - then it could become rather complicated for the user to somehow disable the automatism by some rather low-level hacking. In contrast if a WiFi pattern was used "in between" the automatism may only request to install this pattern but the user could simply "taboo" this one pattern instead of "tabooing" a list of various individual packages which may change over time. Assume there is a computer without WiFi adapter but for some reason the user does want to get WiFi software installed right now. If a WiFi pattern exists the user could simply install this single pattern instead of installing a list of various individual packages which may change over time. Kind Regards Johannes Meixner -- SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH Maxfeldstr. 5 - 90409 Nuernberg - Germany GF: Ivo Totev, Andrew Myers, Andrew McDonald, Boudien Moerman (HRB 36809, AG Nuernberg)