Re: Alternative: Source-Centric Approach [w/code]
On Tue, Mar 15, 2005 at 11:25:23AM -0600, John Goerzen wrote:
>...
> SO archs will be handled exactly like we do now, EXCEPT that we will
> not distribute .debs for most packages. I expect that we will
> distribute .debs for base and build-essential, mainly -- the minimum
> someone needs to install a working system and build more packages.
>...
> What would this mean for users?
>
> Basically, packages install slower on these archs. I have developed a
> demonstration tool called srcinst, available from
> http://people.debian.org/~jgoerzen/srcinst/. srcinst is capable of
> filling all of a package's dependencies and build-depencies solely
> from source. It will use apt-get -b source to build .debs, then
> evaluate (and build, if necessary) their deps, then install them with
> dpkg -i. In short, very similar to apt-get install, except it never
> downloads a .deb from anywhere for any reason. (Most other tools
> don't go this far, and still require .deb downloads for build-deps, or
> don't handle deps at all)
>...
> So, what do you think? Could this work?
Yes, this could work.
That's what Gentoo is good at.
Both source-only distributions like Gentoo and binary distributions like
Debian are possible - and both have their advantages and disadvantages.
I'd hate so see Debian drop most of it's architectures, and as I already
expressed I think it's neither required for release management reasons
nor for ftp space reasons.
Your priority are your users, and if Debian has decided to focus only on
some key architectures it would be the best for them to help them
switching to Gentoo instead of hacking Debian to become some cheap
Gentoo clone for most architectures.
If the Debian developers intereested in the ports Debian intends to drop
would switch to Gentoo for helping Gentoo to support all of their
architectures and for providing easy Debian -> Gentoo transition paths
this would serve your users better.
> -- John
cu
Adrian
--
"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed
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