Philip Prindeville (philipp_subx(a)redfish-solutions.com) said:
What? No. You can have conditional requirements in the RPM...
such
as "*iff* the hardware I'm running on has a wireless NIC, then require
wpa_supplicant." So the RPM can detect a wireless adapter and
conditionally define a Requires: wpa_supplicant line in the NetworkManager
RPM.
Runtime adding of dependencies based on PCI/USB/etc. probing...? I'm
pretty sure RPM can't do that.
The user is also completely capable of manually installing
wpa_supplicant
if he knows he will be using a plug-in wireless card (though more and
more wireless cards are mini-PCI, and hence don't get unplugged much).
This would be better than having an unconditional requirement for wireless
support in wired-only (desktop) environments.
Currently:
- user uses wireless. It just works.
- user doesn't use wireless. It just works, and they have an extra package.
Your proposal:
- user uses wireless. They must remember to install a specifically named
package, otherwise, it fails completely.
- user doesn't use wireless. It works.
How is this better *for the user*?
Bill