Re: debian-installer package payload format
On Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at 07:27:56PM -0400, Joey Hess wrote:
> Assuming that we do get an autobuildable debian-installer source package
> into the archive that can generate install images, we still seem to have
> no plan for what form of binaries it would produce, aside from the
> requisite .deb or .udeb. Since we have not had much feedback from the
> ftp masters on this, I suggest we just do the best we can to find a
> format they can work with with minimal effort, and that they can
> automate if it gets to be too much work, and then punt on the rest of
> the problem.
>
> There only seem to be two choices that do not need immediate changes on
> the ftp-master side:
>
> 1. Just include all the boot images in a .deb, as Allastair's original
> build/debian does, and assume the ftp-masters will somehow deal with
> unpacking that, and that it will not produce problems/confusion to
> have this useless .deb in the Packages lists.
> 2. Include a tarball, which will require "byhand" processing. With the
> tarball we can include our own directory layout, and then the
> ftp-master can just untar this into a directory for the build date,
> update the current symlink, and be done.
>
> I favor the second option, which is similar to how I remember the boot
> floppies doing it at one time. It should be possible for the ftp-masters
> to automate it if they need to. The downside is that before they
> automate it, each new upload of the images will be delayed pending
> manual processing. Daily uploads might be too much with this scheme,
> especially if they end up being batched into only one or two processing
> runs per week. We would still get the benfit of autobuilders, logs, and
> would be able to grab autobuilt images from Incoming.
>
dpkg -x foo_3.2.1-1_arch.deb
is like
tar -xf foo-3.2.1.arch.tar.gz
after that point, manual works starts.
When using 'main/debian-installer' instead of 'main' as the place
for the Packages file, the "useless .deb" go only in
dists/${RELEASE}/main/debian-installer/binary-arch/Packages
and not in the regular
dists/${RELEASE}/main/binary-arch/Packages list.
AFAICT this is minimun impact on the autobuilder,
they can keep building and uploading .deb.
There is no surgery on building and uploading .tar.gz,
we can concentrate on the unpacking in our on tree structure.
> --
> see shy jo
Geert Stappers
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