Re: using perl in preinst script
On Fri, 31 Dec 2010, Carsten Hey wrote:
> * Philipp Kern [2010-12-29 05:38 +0000]:
> > On 2010-12-28, Carsten Hey <carsten@debian.org> wrote:
> > > ... One reason for this is that dpkg's perl scripts were rewritten
> > > in C.
> >
> > I know you phrased it differently but wasn't the motivation for this
> > rewrite to be more robust in the base system on upgrades? I.e. do not
> > rely on Perl and thus avoid adding more contraints on how the base
> > upgrade must be performed to keep dpkg working properly.
>
> I don't know what the main motivation was, although making upgrades more
> robust seems to be a possible and a good one.
>
> http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/RoadMap says:
> | Make dpkg.deb contain only sh and C programs (to help embedded
> | distros, to make it possible to remove perl-base from essential)
Both points were important for me. I have dealt with the RC bug related
to perl scripts failing in various preinst during an upgrade of
perl-base/liblocale-gettext-perl and it was really annoying (i.e. we only
had crude work-around and no proper solution). And I also maintain
customer specific embedded systems where I am using udpkg to have some
basic packaging system, I was avoiding dpkg due to the perl dependency.
Dropping perl-base from essential on Debian proper is not a goal, but
making it barely possible for some embedded derivatives is certainly
interesting for us.
Cheers,
--
Raphaël Hertzog ◈ Debian Developer
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▶ http://RaphaelHertzog.fr (Français)
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