I've recently heard of tasksel, a tool that "installs multiple related packages as a co-ordinated "task" onto your system". What is the difference between using tasksel and installing meta packages via apt-get? What does it do that meta packages can't accomplish?
Asked
Active
Viewed 1,037 times
3 Answers
5
Tasksel can't really express complex dependencies that include version comparisons, optional dependencies, alternative packages, conflicts, etc.
To give a simple example: the tasksel task dns-server installs bind9, while a meta-package could depend on bind9|pdns-server (and a bunch of other DNS servers, but this is just an example), which means installing one of the 2 listed packages fulfils the dependency.
JanC
- 19,822
5
tasksel is ancient, ancient history, and is there mainly for historical reasons. Better just to forget about it.
loevborg
- 7,434
-
Then how come this tasksel screen pops up whenever you install ubuntu server if its now defunct? – JohnMerlino Nov 11 '12 at 15:47
1
one of the reason for using tasksel is that you don't need tu know the name of installed package (for example SSH Server vs package openssh-server)
Praweł
- 6,546
-
1
-
Software Center isn't available via command line, so it would be useless in server environment – Praweł Nov 20 '10 at 12:16
-
2