Discussion: New feature for source packages
Dear developers,
I would like to suggest a new idea, which might improve the system.
Problem: Whenever I upgrade to a new kernelversion, or there are new versions
of kernel-modules or other packages, which are only available in source-code,
it is necessary to build the new versions manually. This is rather annoying
and it might be a problem for not experienced users.
So I though about a comfortable solution. my ideas:
1. add a file, which contents all the packages, which should be build when
either a new package version is installed. This could be done with a script,
maybe by involving m-a a-i. In this file the administrator of the system has to
name all those source-packages, he wants to be built at upgrade.
2. The mentionened file can be maintained during upgrades (for example, when a
new source-file shall be addded). In this case the installer (preinst??) might
ask: Do you want to automatically built this package at newer versions?
Yes/No.
If Yes, its name will be added into the file, and the package will be built.
This can be checked for all packages containing "-source" in its name.
3. Another solution might be a standalone script, which must be called by root
(or run with root privileges), calling all source packages named in a file (or
conf, whatever), using m-a a-i.
Maybe there are other solutions, which might work better. My background
thoughts are to make debian as easy as possible. On the othr hand, an
automatically building of kernel-modules (like Nvidia-kernel-source,
virtualbox, madwifi-ng and other system important things) will let the system
run even on automatically upgrades (i.e. by using cron-apt, or anacron on
notebooks).
Security: To pretend from missusing such an automatismn, the file, which is
naming the source-packages should be read/write-only by root, of course.
Thank you for reading this. I am looking forward to your feedback!
Best regards
Hans-J. Ullrich
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