pkgsrc-Changes archive

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index][Old Index]

Re: Why is xpdf now obsolete?



On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 08:24:23AM -0400, Greg Troxel wrote:
> 
> Bernd Ernesti <netbsd%lists.veego.de@localhost> writes:
> 
> > [redirecting to pkgsrc-users]
> >
> > On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 01:48:52PM +1200, David Sainty wrote:
> >> Christos Zoulas wrote:
> >> >Module Name:      pkgsrc
> >> >Committed By:     christos
> >> >Date:             Sun Aug 23 01:14:00 UTC 2009
> >> >
> >> >Added Files:
> >> >  pkgsrc/print/xpdf: MESSAGE
> >> >
> >> >Log Message:
> >> >add a message that this is obsolete.
> >> >  
> >> 
> >> Is this better off in DESCR?  I think of MESSAGE as text that people 
> >> need after a package is installed, and DESCR as text of interest before 
> >> a package is installed.  This text seems more useful in the latter case, 
> >> especially given that xpdf can't be installed if poppler is already 
> >> installed.
> 
> Agreed.  DESCR should given enough information for someone to decide if
> they want to install the package.  But "obsolete" seems too strong; I
> think the reality is that the gnome world has gone to poppler and
> gtk-based viewers, and therefore pkgsrc ends up needing to have those
> installed on most systems, and it's a pain to try to have xpdf installed
> because the poppler people hijacked program names.
> 
> > Why is xpdf obsolete?
> > The latest version is from this year and has not all the gtk stuff which
> > epdfview uses. I wouldn't call epdfview a lightweight one.
> >
> > The conflict between poppler-util and xpdf is only annoying.
> >
> > Could we please finally fix the conflicts problem, like renaming the
> > pdf* programs in one of the two packages?
> >
> > poppler is a xpdf fork so that is the first choice (leaving the orginal
> > one alone), but maybe the xpdf one could be easier to find a new name
> > for all the pdf* programs.
> 
> I'll second this.  poppler-util conflicts with xpdf, but doesn't
> actually replace it in any reasonable way.
> 
> It would perhaps be reasonable instead to drop all the utilities from
> xpdf, just not installing them.


I third this.  There are some things you can do in xpdf that you *still* 
can't do in epdfview.  Being able to view multiple PDF files that index 
each other as one huge document comes immediately to mind.  Being more 
lightweight also counts for something in my book and for these two 
reasons I would be quite angry if xpdf was marked "obsolete" and 
removed.

Are there any utilities that xpdf provides that poppler-util doesn't?  
If not, I support Greg's idea.
--
Dave V.

Attachment: pgpQ4k3j8vI_M.pgp
Description: PGP signature



Home | Main Index | Thread Index | Old Index