Re: About console-setup in d-i
On Tue, May 22, 2007 at 07:00:36AM +0200, Christian Perrier wrote:
>
> - kbd needs more maintainers
In fact kbd doesn't need a maintainer who knows how to setup properly
the console. We only need someone who is fluent in C and I can help
with the rest.
> - there are very few console handling experts involved (I know about
> Anton and Alastair McKinstry. I'm not one). Some have low availability.
Because of that I think it will be easier to find a maintainer of kbd
who is not a console handling expert. This will be enough.
> I propose that all people working on those console-handling stuff gather
> together in a *single* Alioth group and move the various SVN there:
>
> -console-setup
> -kbd
These are already in Alioth in the project named 'pkg-kbd'. 'Pkg-kbd'
is not a good name but I don't know if it is possible to change the name
of an existing project.
> -console-data
I think you have write access to the SVN of pkg-kbd. If you want you
can add console-data there. BTW our console-data has no upstream
because it is based on console-tools. On the other hand inside kbd
there are some console fonts and keymaps that are currently ignored by
Debian and I don't know how well they are maintained by the upstream of
kbd.
When (if) we decide to reactivate the udebs of console-setup, then we
need to decide about another problem. For practical reasons the d-i
developers should be able to modify the code for these udebs so there
are two possibilities: 1. give d-i developers access to the SVN of
pkg-kbd or 2. move console-setup to the SVN of d-i. I think 2. will be
more convenient.
It is absolutely impossible to separate the udeb from non-udeb part of
console-setup because they share their code. This is intentional in
order to make the maintaining simpler.
> Then, we'll need to call out for help maintaining this stuff, at east
> to provide Frans with firm plans about console handling in DI.
Console-setup doesn't require any changes in the current udebs. (It
will be good if localechooser provides information about the encoding of
the chosen locale, but even this is optional.) All is matter of what
udebs are included in the boot images - kbd-chooser+console-keymaps or
console-setup-udebs+kbd-udeb, the second combination being smaller in
size.
Because of that at any moment and without any preparatory work it is
possible to make preview images of d-i that use the udebs of
console-setup. Only then we will be able to think about firm plans.
I've never tried these udebs, I only know they are used in Ubuntu after
some patching.
The patch I sent in a previous email message is for partial use of
console-setup. No patching is required in order to use console-setup
everywhere for everything. (If localechooser doesn't provide info about
the encoding, then console-setup will ask.)
Anton Zinoviev
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