Re: Debian subset suitable for m68k (was: Tuple and changes for m68k with -malign-int)
Hi John,
On 21.5.2025 4.59, John Klos wrote:
As I pointed out years ago, you need to stop wasting effort on packages
that aren't relevant anymore, due to bloat.
There's no real point being made here. Which packages aren't relevant
any more, due to bloat? Who decides?
Decision part is IMHO rather obvious, it should be both users and
maintainers together.
It's good for maintainers to ask users for feedback on what matters on
them, so that effort is not wasted on something that nobody uses. And
also to ask help if some task is larger, to see whether there's enough
interest (= help available) to make that effort actually worthwhile. If
not, what's the point of maintaining something nobody cares (enough)?
So next question is what are the best ways to reach users and get their
feedback?
Package statistics, bug reports and just asking on the mailing list(s)
are first things that come to my mind, but others may have other
suggestions.
So to start, here are the things that are, and are not, relevant for me
_on m68k_. I.e. _personal_ opinions. First some general principles, and
then few examples.
Relevant
--------
Base system, compilers, interpreters, misc tools, some graphics, and
things shared between niche/retro communities (like m68k) in general.
In my case, for example:
- Kernel
- Busybox
- Gcc
- G++
- Lua
- Python
- La/TeX
- SDL1
- ScummVM
- Wired networking
- w3m, links, lynx etc
- Small niche windowing systems
- Slimmed-down Debian essentials
Not relevant
------------
Modern corporate backed software, and anything needing encryption or
GPUs supporting GLES2+, I get enough of those on x86 Linux. They are too
slow / large for m68k platform, and frankly boring, all something I try
to avoid in my hobbies. :-)
For example:
- Java & C#
- LibreOffice
- Chrome/ium, Firefox, Webkit
- Modern desktop environments (KDE, Gnome...)
- libSDL v2 & v3, and things depending on them
- Wireless & VPN support
- Virtualization
Potentially relevant
--------------------
Some of the new tech, especially when it relates to smaller setups and
base system, and more lightweight GUI apps, might also be of interest at
some point:
- Wayland / Weston
- Golang
- Rust, Zig
- Abiword, Gnumeric, Evince (non-Gnome versions)
- LyX (LaTeX GUI)
Any thoughts on the above principles?
- Eero
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