Re: CD.

[Brederlow <goswin.brederlow@student.uni-tuebingen.de>]

Michael Schmitz <SCHMITZ@LCBVAX.CCHEM.BERKELEY.EDU> writes:

> Hi,
> 
> Pish. Use the same boot disks as for Atari, and boot with a fat kernel without
> modules. The kernel that's installed to /boot is irrelevant if you use 
> ataboot, or amiboot. And the modules installed are irrelevant if you use a
> non-module kernel (you even can prevent the /etc/init.d/modules script from
> trying to load modules if the kernel doesn't support modules). 
> 
> Or even better: provide a modularized kernel and a modules tarball so a Debian
> rescue/drivers disk can be built. You've done that stuff anyway, I guess, so
> why are you still complaining 'there's no install floppies for Amiga'?? 

And with which floppy should I read in those disks? There is no way to 
read 1.4 MB disks with an dd floppy drive. Also the fd0 can't read 720 
K disks it seems but only 880 K disks. It's not that simple as just
takeing some dummy disks. On the CD the images could be used, but
thats not the right thing to do. 
> 
> >Also only one Network device is suported and that only during installtation.
> 
> ???? What the hell do you need a network device for, during installation? 
> I might have missed the point, but 'install from FTP/NFS' wasn't among the 
> choices ?? The network config is only done after installing the base system. 
> 
> I agree, the way SLIP and PPP is 'configured' (without adding the slattach/pppd
> commands to /etc/init.d/network) is a joke, but that would be easy to fix 
> in case of static SLIP. dip and pppd should be configured carefully after
> booting from the base system; that's the first place you'll need them.

The slip and ppp isn't configured, which is easy to fix, yes. But
thats not the point. It's not easy to configure them for a newbie,
also its not easy to configure further network devices, in case one has 
more than one, or to change the configuration of the network setup.

> >Eagle will support up to 4 (at the moment) network devices and one is
> >able to reconfigure them any time one wants with the very same script.
> 
> I don't see the point. Ethernet is configured OK (all it takes for that
> is ifconfig, and that's done by the ramdisk). And I think configuring SLIP or
> PPP doesn't belong in the install disk. YMMV, as usual, but if you're producing 
> a CD, why provide for NFS installs??

Base could be installed via nfs or ftp. Think about a computer pool
with a server containing all the files. After installing the server
you create a boot disk and put that into the clients. They boot up,
install and configure themself completley without any further
questions. That would be the best and easiest way. We won't go that
far, but we are taking the first steps in that direction.

> >Apart from that the Debian installation routine is quite allright, but 
> 
> Thanks for pointing that out. To me, it seems what you did is build a
> modularized kernel, added network config stuff to the ramdisk and call that
> a vastly improved installation tool. I'm still wondering why none of this 
> was fed back into Debian/68k?? (Actually, I'm only half wondering, but why 
> would someone want to do this instead of bringing Debian/68k an important step
> closer to fully supporting Amiga? Must be a marketroid decision ...)

Nothing was fed back, because nothing is finished yet. The network
script is pretty (98%) finished so that could be made public soon. I
would like to improove Debian/68k (and other archs), but Eagle has to
get a Distribution out. We have to make decisions and get stuff done
without waiting for Debian to solve Problems or to adapt ideas. If
Debian takes the ideas up or makes something better out of it,
fine. If Debian/m68k were stable the Eagle linux would be Debian
Linux. Also several People have discouraged firms to do an unstable
Debian distribution so Eagle wont do that eigther. 

> >as you said troubles come later. Many things that I saw that broke the 
> >system lately where problems with dselect or dpkg and not by the package
> >files itself.
> 
> The only trouble I saw lately (Dec. 20 packages) was missing net support for
> dpkg-ftp. If you solved that problem, it would only be fair to share the 
> solution. I've not had problems with dselect or dpkg at all, except for
> the stupid Mac HFS stuff and that was solved by running dpkg on each
> binary-m68k subdirectory in turn, manually. Precisely what dselect does to
> install, on all subdirs at once. No problem whatsoever.
> And slattach is broken, patch sent to the maintainer - did you fix slattach?? 
What about dpkg downgrading a package when an newer version is
unpacked but not configured? What about dselect not complaining about
nonexisting files which are needed for dependencies. What about the
speed of dselect or the inability to search or filter certain infos.

> Or do you ship a defective product?

As soon as the fix is out we will use it (probably already is out). We 
are testing as much as we can on a wide range of systems (from
A1200/030/28/4 MB fast to A4000T/060/50/128 MB fast). If something
doesn't work that will be noted and a bug will be filled. Actually we
have several things waiting here to look through from the
autocompilation we did. Because the errors could be just caused by a
missing dev package we have to look through each logfile for each
package before filling a bug.

> >> And the question whether source is included was a serious one ...
> >
> >Do you mean source for the debian package? There will (as far as I
> >know) be a source CD of Debian awaylable. Of cause the Sources wont
> >fit onto the CD with the binaries. If you mean the sources for the
> 
> I meant exactly that. Read the GPL lately?

Don't worry that we will break the GPL, that won't happen.

> >installation routines and configure routines they will be copyright by 
> >Eagle and will come under some sort of GPL or Berkley
> >licens. Depending on that licens the source will be available or
> >not. (also depending on the parts of sources we used during developement). 
> 
> Will be available or not. Makes me ROTFL or not. Whatever. Both GPL and
> Berkeley license permit source distribution, so there can't be a problem with 
> that. There can only be a problem with your or Egal's attitude. 
> 
> And I have a real problem with that - if you used GPLed source for the
> installation stuff, you're required by the GPL to redistribute source under
> GPL, or not distribute anything. It's that easy. You wanna check your position.
> (In case you didn't get the point: I'm interested in seeing that code, to
> see what it does and how Debian/68k could benefit doing similar things. I don't
> want to copy it. I don't know if your way of handling the installation makes 
> any sense, just curious what Debian/68k might learn from it).

Thats why I wrote 'depending on the parts of source we used'. We used
a gpl source in one case, so that source will be gpl. Other things we
wrote completly ourself, so that could come under Berkley. The
specific Licenz isn't decided yet, but I'm certain that Debian can
learn from it. We don't wan't to make life difficult for Debian or
Linux, that just doesn't make sense. 

> I've even got a bigger problem with a company only taking (free software, where
> 'free' isn't about money) and not sharing any modifications to it. 
> 
> Don't get me wrong: My problem is with the _company_, not with you personally
> (and I don't want to know how deep you're involved with them). Smacks of
> 'let's take Debian, sell it, and the hell don't share the improvements: we're
> competitors, after all!'. A rip-off. 
> And I'm not raging against the fact that someone makes Debian/68k (that's 
> what it is, call it any way you like) available on CD before the fact, though 
> I still think that's not a bright idea. You will have ironed out install and 
> upgrade glitches, and users will be happy, and that's a Good Thing. 
> The way this whole business was a one-way road is what's making me mad.

The best think would be to have an Official Debian m68k Linux
distribution sold by Eagle, but thats the future. At the moment we
iron out the glitches and we haven't released anything yet. The main
reason is that it's not ready and foolprove. Lets wait until we think
the stuff is ready for release and then start complaining. Maybe the
complete source will be gpl, maybe not. It's not my point ot decide
that and it's in no way decided yet. Everything I wrote so far
contains a gpl copyright, and thats probably what it will have at the
end, but don't sue me for it.

May the Source be with you.
			Mrvn


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