As many of you know, I am about to release my book, The Debian
System [0]. We are currently in the process of producing the DVDs and
only now stumbled over [1], which raises a major issue:
0. http://debianbook.info
1. http://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/info
The book's cover advertises "official Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 'sarge'
on DVD", and it has been printed a couple of thousand times already.
However, with the book, we wanted to provide a DVD that includes
i386 and amd64 support on a single DVD simply because amd64 is
gaining popularity. Hence, it is not the official sarge ISO.
This DVD is currently being made and to be pressed on Monday.
This puts me in the highly unpleasant situation to do something
about the issue. My alternatives include:
- make sure to spend the whole weekend to test the DVD on i386 and
amd64 and make it meet up to the Debian quality standards, then
simply leave everything as it is.
As far as I can remember, the policy on [1] has been introduced
in response to the Debian 1.0 fiasco: a premature release of
Debian 1.0 which just wasn't ready yet. My case is different:
sarge is out, and my DVD is actually based on the official
sarge release.
- Change the current text on the DVD label from
This DVD contains the installer and the most common packages
for the i386 and amd64 architectures. Additional packages are
available from the Debian mirrors (see chapter 5.4).
to
This DVD is based on the official Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 "sarge"
release and contains the installer and the most common
packages for the i386 and amd64 architectures. Additional
packages are available from the Debian mirrors (see chapter
5.4).
and be done with it. Then, I am actually falsely advertising the
DVD on the book's contents, which I could live with.
- Add a file to the DVD (it currently contains no customisations
or special README files) such as README or ERRATA which attempts
to set this straight. Colin Watson has to say to this:
20:03 < Kamion> otherwise you're saying "yeah! yeah! it's official!
<small>actually, no it's not</small>"
- Insert an errata slip in the book correcting this error. This
would be quite a pain to say the least.
I have ranked these four alternatives in order of my preference.
I personally think that the first would be okay, given also the fact
that the DVD is being produced by official Debian developers.
However, I feel as if I should not make a decision without your
input, which I am herewith soliciting. Please consider my position
and help me find a solution that's acceptable to Debian and will not
cause my publisher to kill me.
Thanks for your time and understanding.
--
Please do not send copies of list mail to me; I read the list!
.''`. martin f. krafft <madduck@debian.org>
: :' : proud Debian developer, admin, user, and author
`. `'`
`- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing a system
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-- oscar wilde
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