<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Canonical could still support their official packages. If users installed something else on their own, that is their business. Is this not already the case with supported desktops? I also wonder which is easier: making many packages co-installable (for all future releases) or adding the proposed metapackage capability? Colin Watson wrote: <blockquote cite="mid20070114022516.GA14134@riva.ucam.org" type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Why not just "depend" on virtual packages like "supported-mua" "supported-browser" and so on, and have packages like firefox provide supported-browser? </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap="">I like that idea. What does everyone else think about this? </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> It's not implementable within the current design of the metapackages without some interesting germinate hacking. It also has interesting implications for e.g. the Canonical support department, who offer desktop support for systems with ubuntu-desktop installed; making that metapackage considerably more flexible would imply training them in all the possible alternatives. I think development work would be better concentrated on making more packages coinstallable so that there's less need to remove the metapackages. </pre> </blockquote> </body> </html>