Fedora Comps

comps is a XML file used by various Fedora tools to perform grouping of packages into functional groups.

How comps is used

Installation

comps is used by the installer during package selection. At the Default Packages dialog , the user can choose to Customize Now, displaying the Category Selection dialog.

In the category selection dialog , categories (as defined by the category keyword in comps.xml) are listed down the left-hand side. If a category is selected, any groups in that category with uservisible set are displayed in the right-hand pane. Groups have an icon associated with them. These icons come from the comps-extras package; icons are read from /usr/share/pixmaps/comps/<group-id>.png. If an icon does not exist for a group id, the one for the category that the group is in is used.

Once a group is selected, clicking the Optional Packages button shows the Package Selection dialog.

In any group, there are four levels of packages: optional, default, mandatory, and conditional:

• optional are not automatic but can be checked
• default are, but can be unchecked in a gui tool
• mandatory are always brought in (if group is selected), and not visible in the Package Selection dialog.
• conditional are brought in if their requires package is installed

Usually optional is the way, however if you feel that your package deserves a default or required level bring it up for discussion on the development lists. Remember that this has effect on whether or not your package winds up on distribution media such as Live images and spins.

Running System

In dnf, groups are used by dnf group install and dnf group remove commands, and can be queried with dnf group list command.

In PackageKit (Add / Remove Software) the upper left quadrant shows Package collections. When this is clicked, the grouping information is loaded from the configured software repositories, and the complete list of groups, stripped from their categories, are shown in the right hand pane. Selecting a group for installation causes only the default packages within the group to be installed.

Developing comps

git clone ssh://git@pagure.io/fedora-comps.git

When changing the packages, make sure the file is sorted. This helps to make it more maintainable. Use make sort command to fix the sorting.

Tree, Release, and Image Composition

The kickstart files in fedora-kickstarts use the group definitions from comps to compose images and release trees.

For more info

For more information, including rules on how and when to edit comps, see the Fedora project wiki.

Bugs against comps can be filed in bugzilla.