Bug#780994: flash-kernel: Missing dependency on u-boot-tools fails initramfs-tools to fail
On Thu, 1970-01-01 at 00:49 +0000, Martin Stigge wrote:
> That's easily resolved by installing the u-boot-tools package, but I would
> have expected that do be a dependency in that case. I see that it's a
> Suggests, but looks rather essential to me.
u-boot-tools is not a strict requirement for flash-kernel since it is
only needed on certain platforms, as expressed by the Required-Packages
field in the flash-kernel database.
Debian Installer (via the flash-kernel-installer udeb) will process that
field and install what is needed but if you install things by hand (or
are using debootstrap etc) then you may need to do so manually.
So, I don't think a hard depends would be the right answer. Perhaps
given that many boards do need u-boot-tools an upgrade to Recommends
might be in order, but my preference would be for f-k to learn to check
(at runtime and/or installation time) that the set of Required-Packages
are present and issue a warning/error, or at least to check that mkimage
is present before actually using it and printing an appropriate warning
otherwise.
Ian.
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