Repositories, archive, sources, components, categories...

[Sebastian Heinlein - glatzor]

Am Sonntag, den 28.05.2006, 01:26 +0200 schrieb Robin Sonefors:
> When reading through the dapper documentation (and also the associated
> programs, such as synaptic and g-a-i), I can't help but notice that the
> vocabulary for where programs are downloaded seems quite undefined.
> 
> There's something that Ubuntu has one - where all the packages are.
> 
> And there's something ubuntu has a few - breezy, dapper,
> breezy-backports, hoary-security etc.
> 
> Then there's something which Ubuntu has four - main, restricted,
> universe, multiverse.
> 
> Where do the terms in my topic fit in? The Xubuntu guide (the one I'm
> currently translating, but absolutely not the only one) seems to use the
> word categories for main, restricted etc, but that word is already taken
> by the... categories - graphics, e-mail etc.
> 
> What's a repository? What's a component? What's an archive? What's a
> source? And all the  other words for the same thing. There should be
> documentation for this - not necessarily for the end-user, but for
> program and documentation authors. If there is, then everything should
> be validated against it.

A repository is called software channel, e.g. Ubuntu Dapper "deb
http://ubuntu.com dapper". But I don't know why the term software
channel was chosen. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RepositoryDialogRedesign

The software channel consists of one or more components: main, universe,
restricted ...

The software is grouped in so called sections, eg. "x11", "gnome" or
"devel".

I tried to unify the used term as far as I could in the user interface
of gnome-app-install (also the manual), synaptic (a patch for the menu
missed the freeze) and software-properties.

Please report any errors.

Sebastian