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The interface uses debconf for consistency with the rest of the Debian
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installer.
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On startup, the tasksel program will read all *.desc files in
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/usr/share/tasksel/ for information about what tasks are available. The
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tasks will be presented in a simple list selection screen with their short
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descriptions.
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On exit, tasksel executes the appropriate command to install the selected
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packages. If the -t option is given, then tasksel prints out the command
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line to use to stdout instead. All other messages are printed to stderr.
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To get a new task added to Debian, please file a bug report on tasksel.
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Debian derived distributions can add a new .desc file to
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/usr/share/tasksel/ to add additional tasks, or modify/divert
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debian-tasks.desc to remove tasks.
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The file format is a rfc-822 style stanza, with fields named Task, Section,
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Description (which should include an extended description), Key, Packages,
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Depends, and optional Test- and Source fields. Here is an example:
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Task: graphical-games
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Section: user
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Relevance: 10
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Description: Graphical games
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This task provides a variety of graphical games. Old-school unix games are
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not included.
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Key:
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x-window-system-core
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Packages: list
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quake
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myst
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monkey-island
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The Key field lists packages that are essential to the task. If those
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packages are not available, then the task will not be available either. It
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need not list all the packages in the task, if some only serve to make it
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better when they are available. All Key packages will be selected for
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installation when a task is installed.
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The Packages field tells how to get a complete list of packages that are in
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the task. In the example above, it uses the "list" method, which is defined
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in /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/list. This simple method just lets you list
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the packages you want to include in the task in the following lines.
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In Debian, we mostly use the "task-fields" method, which is built into
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tasksel, and looks for Task fields in the control data of available
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packages, that list the name of the task. Another available method is
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"standard", which just installs all standard priority packages, and another
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is "manual", which, as a special case, runs aptitude interactively to
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select what to install.
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It's also possible to define other methods, by adding programs to
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/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/. Then list the name of the program as the first
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word of the task field, and it will be run and passed the name of the task as
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its first parameter and any further lines of the task field as its other
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parameters, and should output a list of packages in that task. The "list"
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method described above is a simple example of such a program.
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There is support for automatically installing tasks based on test programs.
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If a task has a Test-* field, then a program in /usr/lib/tasksel/tests/
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will be run. For example Test-lang fields cause /usr/lib/tasksel/tests/lang
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to be run. The test is passed first the name of the tasks, and then the
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contents of the field as parameters. The exit code of the test controls
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what to do with the task:
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0 - do not display, but do install task
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1 - do not display task
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2 - display task, marked for installation
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3 - display task, not marked for installation
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One use of these tests is in automatically selecting a language task
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appropriate for the user's locale, and hiding the rest. The lang test
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handles this by comparing the value of the Test-lang field of a task with
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the locale setting. Tests could also be used for things like automatically
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installing hardware support tasks on systems with the right hardware.
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There is rudimentary support for tasks that depend on other tasks. If a
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task has a Depends field, then it should only be installed if all the tasks
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listed as dependencies are installed.
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If a task is important enough that it should go near the top of its
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section, give it a relevance of 9 or 10. If a task is not likely to be
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used, give it a relevance of 1. Default is 5.
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