There are tasksel tasks that
 1. The command "tasksel --list-tasks" does not list.
 2. They do not show either in the task description file "/usr/share/tasksel/descs/debian-tasks.desc"

Some examples are the tasks "science-tasks", "electronic-tasks", "education-tasks", and quite a few more:
https://packages.debian.org/search?suite=bookworm§ion=all&arch=any&searchon=all&keywords=tasksel
https://packages.debian.org/search?suite=bookworm§ion=all&arch=any&searchon=names&keywords=live-task-

Despite all this, tasksel can actually install them: for instance, "tasksel -t install science-tasks".

I am on: Debian 12.1 (bookworm),
kernel version (output of "uname -v"): #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.38-1 (2023-07-14)

d3vf4n@tutanota.com wrote at Sat, 29 Jul 2023:

[ Adding debian-blends mailinglist to the loop ]


The first packages.d.o link from above lists these packages (amongst others):

pan-tasks: PAN Blends tasks for tasksel

electronics-tasks: Debian Electronics tasks for tasksel

science-tasks: Debian Science tasks for tasksel

multimedia-tasks: Debian Multimedia tasks for tasksel

junior-tasks: Debian Jr. tasks for tasksel

games-tasks: Debian Games tasks for tasksel

debichem-tasks: DebiChem tasks for tasksel

gis-tasks: Debian GIS tasks for tasksel

med-tasks: Debian Med tasks for tasksel

education-tasks: Debian Edu tasks for tasksel

fbx-tasks: FreedomBox tasks for tasksel

astro-tasks: Debian Astronomy Pure Blend (tasksel tasks)

hamradio-tasks: Debian Hamradio Tasks

blends-tasks: Debian Pure Blends tasks for new installations



These look to me as an early attempt, to allow blends installation from
our debian-installer (via tasksel). Is this correct?

Since there is a (new) working mechanism for this approach now (via
blendsel [1]), the above packages might be no longer needed?

Or are they still used?


In every case, this approach now might be irritating, since it is based
on tasksel, while the new mechanism works via the new blendsel (so
completely independent from tasksel) ...

I was not aware of these packages, when I developed blendsel, BTW.



Holger


[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-blends/2025/01/msg00000.html

Hi Holger,

at first I'd like to thank you for all your work.

I'd also like to stress that due to my other tasks I'm not regularly
reading this list - feel free to ping me more hardly than in simple list
replies.

Am Fri, Mar 07, 2025 at 11:04:35PM +0100 schrieb Holger Wansing:

I think the last one does not really fit into that list.  All others
are providing tasksel support for the according blend

I do not think that the initial idea was debian-installer support.
However, it might be perfectly usalbe for this as well.

I *personally* do not use these.  Unfortunately we can't really know
since we have no direct from our users.  Do you think these packages are
creating any harm if these are just available?

That's a valid point, thought,

Do you have any suggestion what should be changed?

Kind regards
    Andreas.

Hi,

Am 22. März 2025 10:17:46 MEZ schrieb Andreas Tille <tille@debian.org>:

My reply to the blends list was not to only contact you personally, I guessed there are more blends people?
I would not consume leader's time, when not strictly needed.

Not apart from the confusion mentioned below, which can also be seen in the fact, that this bug was filed.

So, you can only install them with tasksel via 'tasksel -t install <name>'.
Therefore there is no difference against using 'apt install <name>':
you need to know the metapackage name, and you have use a console command.

So users don't need the tasksel way, and they don't need above packages at all.

Instead, we should advise users to use 'apt install'.
On d.o/blends the name of all blends' metapackages are mentioned.
Maybe we could also mention the *-all metapackages, for the case, that people want to install all the metapackages for a blend?

(That would be the same as installing a blend via blendsel in debian-installer, since blendsel is relying on exactly those *-all metapackages, like science-all or med-all.)


Holger

Hi Holger,

Am Sun, Jan 05, 2025 at 10:20:19PM +0100 schrieb Andreas Tille:

Dropped other lists in CC except debian-boot which is relevant for my
question.

I was very happy to read about the release of Debian Installer Trixie RC
1 [1]—many thanks to Holger and the entire Boot team for all the work
that went into it. I know how critical and complex this part of the
release process is, and I truly appreciate your continued efforts.

I was particularly interested in the planned integration of blendsel. I
understand that it might already be included in this release, but I
didn’t find it mentioned in the changelog. Since this feature is quite
important to me, I just wanted to kindly ask whether it is already
present and perhaps the changelog just doesn’t reflect it yet—or whether
it's planned for a later point.

Apologies for not checking the code directly; things are quite busy on
my end, so I wanted to ask just to be sure.

Thanks again for all your work and dedication!

Kind regards
    Andreas.

[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2025/05/msg00003.html

Hi,

Am 17. Mai 2025 07:21:40 MESZ schrieb Andreas Tille <tille@debian.org>:

Sure, it's included.

I guess it did not make it into the announcement/changelog, because blendsel is a new package, and that requires some action in a (black magic) mechanism, which helps Cyril to grab the relevant changings together for the announcement ;-)



Holger

AFAICS the logic for running blendsel was added to pkgsel 0.83 [1] which
was included in D-I Alpha 1 already [2]. However the D-I Alpha 1
announcement purposely did not detail all the many changes since
bookworm, so blendsel was not explicitly mentioned [3].

[1] <https://sources.debian.org/src/pkgsel/testing/debian/changelog>
[2]
<https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/trixie_di_alpha1/amd64/list-cd/debian-trixie-DI-alpha1-amd64-netinst.list.gz>
[3] <https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/News/2024/20241231>

Hi,

Am 17. Mai 2025 09:31:35 MESZ schrieb Pascal Hambourg <pascal@plouf.fr.eu.org>:

Indeed. Pascal's answer is even better than mine!
Thanks!


Holger

I tested the installation of Debian Junior. It's awesome. Thanks a lot.