Introduction

In this document, I'll explain how maintainer scripts in debian packages have interacted with the user so far, the problems this causes, and the things it prevents us from doing. Then I'll show how debconf can address these problems.

The status quo

Currently, if a package needs to prompt the user for input, it just does, using standard input and standard output to communicate with them. A few packages use things like dialog for a user interface, while most use bare-bones textual interfaces. There is little consistency between these interfaces, since they are each written from scratch. They use different methods to indicate default values, different ways to present lists of choices, and even prompt in different ways when the user just needs to hit enter after being shown a message. Many packages ask the user a series of questions with no way to go back to a previous question, or to start over.

Problems with the status quo

Most packages that prompt do so in the postinst, and so the user has to baby-sit an install, answering questions as they come up, and then waiting for some more packages to be installed and some more questions to arrive. There is no way to answer all the questions first and then let dpkg install everything unattended, and so installs are a long, drawn out process.

Upgrades often take a long time as well, because many packages ask the same questions over and over each time they are installed. Those that don't have to store the user's last response somewhere, and they do this in a variety of different, inconsistent, ways.

Moreover, there is no way to simply use default answers for all the questions asked, if you're in a hurry or don't want to be bothered with them, which has historically made the debian install a barrier to new users.

The traditional way of asking questions has made some specialized uses of debian harder as well. Many experienced debian users would like to put "apt-get update; apt-get upgrade" in a cron job, and have their system upgraded periodically to unstable. People working on clusters or other large-scale debian installations can't afford to answer the same questions over and over again on each machine, and have hacked together various ways around this.

Fina