Re: Debian BSD.. cool idea
On Tue, Feb 01, 2000 at 03:01:35PM +0000, Nathan Hawkins wrote:
>
> Now this is actually worthwhile discussion... :-)
>
> Dan Potter writes:
>
> > I recall waay back on Jan 31 when Raul Miller wrote:
> >
> > > You're right. Though that's a fairly constrained case and I
> > > think it would be fine to have a kernel-specific set of kld*s.
> > >
> > > And, I guess that means that linux apps which use /proc/ aren't
> > > going to work.
> >
> > There's more to it than that though. A lot of basic system processes
> > (bound up in util-linux right now) would need to be the FreeBSD
> > equivalents, and they'd have to be built for the same kernel version.
>
> I think the thing to do in the short term is to track FreeBSD equivalents,
> and deal with kernel version dependence for those things. One long term
> solution could be to look at creating a library interface that is
> compatible with both Linux and FreeBSD, and maybe open to other targets. Do
> it under BSD license, and maybe NetBSD and OpenBSD will be able/willing to
> use it, too. That would be nice. :)
Yes, this long-term goal seems pretty sound.
>
> In any case, the issue is there in Linux, too, between 2.2 and 2.0, IIRC.
> Seems like I had to upgrade ps and ifconfig, and a few other things. It's
> less of a problem, but it _is_ there.
>
> For the short term, I'd favor making the portions of the userland that are
> glued to the kernel revision be built from the same source package, but be
> made into separate binary packages, with exact version dependacies. It's a
> bit ugly, but we already do that for apache and X, I think. That lays the
> groundwork for a long-term solution -- which (long-term solution) should be
> built in cooperation with FreeBSD.
>
> I really wish that the FreeBSD advocates on this list would realize that
> there isn't a real desire to fork the system. But it could happen, and the
> most likely reason would be if FreeBSD refuses patches, and made it hard to
> stay in sync. That could be fixed if someone with commit priviledges were
> to work on Debian/BSD.
>
fork means only one thing to me: fork() :-) I can't speak for
any of my fellow FBSD'ers, but I don't believe there is much
enthusiasm for a DebianBSD distribution. I may write up
something for DaemonNews ... Hm.
The nutshell of this is that I think we all have vastly more
shared goals than disparate ones. How we get there--if we
ever do--may be evolutionary. By small discrete steps and
some large jumps.
gary
--
Gary D. Kline kline@tao.thought.org Public service Unix
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