Re: Removing unwanted files at installation time
Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> The kernel source package only contains a tar archive of the kernel
> source now.
If you safely unpack it and then remove parts of the
> unpacked source, dpkg won't care if you do that. This just happens to
> be the way in which the kernel source is distributed, and every now and
> then someone seems to come up with the idea to split the source in bits
> (see the linux-kernel archives) but a consensus is reached that perhaps
> that is not such a good idea after all.
I usually use the kernel-2.2.xx.tar.gz files from "www.kernel.org" and
make my own source package. I was suggesting eliminating the unnecessary
tree elements from the tar ball. Is that possible? I did not think
Debian would work properly if anything was altered. (I have not actually
tried it.) Just so you will know I am just now experimenting with making
my own Debianized packages from completely non-debianized tar balls.
>
> Older kernel-source packages contained the unpacked source. If you
> remove parts of that dpkg would give a warning for each file that
> was in its database but that you removed. Those are just warnings
> though.
Ah Hah! I took them to mean "Do not do this!" Thanks.
>
> > This is exactly the feature that I am seeking.
>
> It's not though, you just think at the moment it is :). I do want to add
> this to dpkg at some point, but at the moment there are just a bunch of
> things higher on the TODO-list.
It's good enough that you are aware of the opportunity to improve
Debian.
>
> However please realize that this won't help you to exclude files from
> other languages completely, but only those which happen to live in a
> clearly defined place in the filesystem hierarchy.
Maybe down the road somewhere the upstream package developers will
become aware that as the "world" becomes interested in free software,
the need for streamlining installations will become increasingly more
important. Perhaps an approach of using library files to handle
different languages. Then making installation selections based on
dependencies created by those libraries. We already do that with
programming "languages". As an example I would regret that my current
Gnome Enlightenment screen greeting spoke in some language that I do not
understand. Thanks for your interest.
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