Re: [proposal] Documenting which revision is installed

[Adeodato Simó <dato@net.com.org.es>]

* Martin Zobel-Helas [Wed, 26 Dec 2007 23:33:17 +0100]:

> Hi,

Hi. 

I personally have nothing against. However, remembering the thread at
[1], I'm not sure what the base-files maintainer will think of that.

  [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2007/05/msg01138.html

*Personally*, I like the idea of Javier Fernández-Sanguino expressed in
the mail linked above of keeping debian_version as is, and introducing
/etc/lsb-release with detailed information like:

  DISTRIB_ID=Debian
  DISTRIB_RELEASE=4.0
  DISTRIB_CODENAME=etch
  DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 'etch'"

I think this file would ideally live in the base-files package as well,
but: for this file to be meaningful, it would have to have three
branches, one uploaded via sid, another via t-p-u, and another via
s-p-u. And the base-files maintainer actually objects to maintaining
base-files in other flow that is not the normal flow for a package
(unstable->testing->stable).

For all this, I'm suggesting the creation of a new package (say,
release-info) containing that sole file, hopefully Priority: required.
If nobody objects, I would like to maintain it. (I'll file an ITP if
there's no strong opposition here; there wasn't any when I proposed the
same back in June in the above thread.)

Cheers,

-- 
Adeodato Simó                                     dato at net.com.org.es
Debian Developer                                  adeodato at debian.org
 
One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code.
                -- Ken Thompson