Re: common udpkg and uapt-get functionality

[Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>]

Glenn McGrath wrote:
> The way i see it, a key feature of the new installer is that packaging
> is much more tightly integrated.
> 
> There are really 3 levels of abstraction for package managment(ignoring
> debconf), dpkg-deb, dpkg, and apt-get.

My view is that these three levels are essentially arbitrary and the
result of the evolution of debian over the years, and I see no need to
duplicate them. We need to write what we need, not some ideal system,
and it doesn't have to resemble regular debian package handling at all
underneath, we're just using regular debian packages because that is
easy.

> We are try to make miniture versions of these, im trying to work at the
> top level to make a retriever

We need a retreiver controller, but it does *not* need to look like apt.
I'm mostly concerned that we don't know how the retreiver controller is
supposed to work. Ok, it can download debs and tell udpkg to install
them. All well and good, but how does it know which debs to download?
Bear in mind the install process is not going to involve the user
typing "uapt-get install udeb". What does it do if it can only retreive
.debs from floppies at first, but the system is later built up to the point
where it can switch to using the network -- how does it realize this has
happened and what does it do? What if it has two sources of debs that both
seem to be euqally good -- how does it figure out which to use? These are
all questions I don't know the anwsers to yet, and writing a tool that
looks like apt-get is not going to help much toward answering them.

(I've also been wrestling with these questions for over a week and could
really use some help on answers.)

-- 
see shy jo