Allow selection during installation using pacman when multiple providers are available

[necrosisy]

Some software packages may have multiple providers as dependencies. During the automatic installation process, archinstall selects the first project in lexicographic order by default. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to add an option to manually operate when providers are selected during the installation process, just like the normal pacman installation process.

[Torxed]

I think I understand what you're pointing towards, but could you give a concrete example of a package that would trigger this?

[necrosisy]

I think I understand what you're pointing towards, but could you give a concrete example of a package that would trigger this?

Of course, for example, when using the kde desktop configuration file, the dependency phonon-qt5-backend has multiple providers. And when the gstreamer and vlc backends are installed at the same time, kde uses gstream by default, and I have to uninstall it manually switch. Overall I think as a feature this can help make archinstall easier to use.

[Torxed]

Thank you, I have no quick solution to this as it will require some form of halt-and-ask logic that we currently don't have.

We're trying to ask all the user input up-front, so halting to ask questions doesn't really appeal to the workflow that I've built over the years. So I'd need to investigate if it's possible via libalpm or something ahead of time to iterate over the providers - as this would be the ideal way to do it.

[svartkanin]

I think this may start spinning too much. If people choose a full automated installation then it would get interrupted potentially. Is that wanted? Not wanted? What's the downside of us using a fixed provider?