On Wed, Mar 27, 2002 at 01:53:00PM +0100, Eduard Bloch wrote: > I looked over the current mencal-or-not discussion and talked to an > Ex-Maintainer. I think it is time to point out some bad trends in > Debian, which must be stoped, otherwise the whole system is going to > collapse, sooner or later. We already know this, it has come up on the mailinglist twenty times with big threads. This won't be done before woody, I think it's better to wait for the woody release. After the woody release we can look at the problems and think about the solutions. > 1) Large packages files > > dpkg and apt are designed to manage all the data in one single volume. > This may have worked fine in Slink times, but now, the volume explodes. > We need to make decissions. I suggest a three level structure: > > first level: often used packages, max. 500-1000. This volume is used as > primary target for dpkg/apt operation. It contains same data as > Packages files handle now > > Second level: names of additional packages and keywords (remember > Erich's proposal) > > Thirth level: Rest of data, acompanying the second level. And this *fixes nothing*. When Debian grows and we a 3 times as much packages, the Packages filesize is as big as it is now. I think my solutions, providing packages files for each source package, is better. I don't see a better solution at the moment, I'm really interested if somebody knows a much better scheme. Keep in mind that my proposed layout provides a lot of flexibility. > 2) dpkg's internal structure > > I am not very familiar with dpkg's internals, but my impression says, > that it needs memory and number of disk access times with O^2 or more. > shlib's, list files, thousands of postinst files with same and same > function could be replaced with an good database - saving space > and increasing speed. <disclaimer>Yes, I propose to change important > things. Yes, this is best done with a newer package format. No, I do not > want to port RPM.</disclaimer> First of all I don't see what's wrong with our package format. Second a change which isn't backwards compatible will never accepted I think. > 3) Debconf's usage. > > The current debconf'isation and how it is often done, confuses more > and more. Preinst and postinst scripts bomb you with thousands of > questions before you even got a chance to have read the docs. > We need an additional level for package's configuration state: > "fine-configured". Only essential things are configured to get the > package into the "configured" state. For all fine configuration, the > user can invoke a frontend (GUI/TUI with list selection, or CLI like > dpkg-reconfigure) and manage the rest. Isn't that exactly what "critical" is? > 4) Localisation: We need to provide better localisation. I am very > disappointed about base-config, which is not localised while > boot-floppies have good localisation support. We should have additional > package attributes which can be replaced by apt, so specific packages can > get higher Priority: depending on the country settings. IMHO the package management could be make more flexible. > 4.5) I suggest to use UTF8 as the default internal format. Unification > at this point may prevent breakage letter. I can agree with this, but there are also some issues. It's not so easily as you describe here. > 5) Configuration issues. The current stat is bad. Look at Knoppix, they > manage to configure X for Debian without much user interaction. It is > still not possible to make GPM and X to work together. Why cannot > Branden and Zephaniah not work together? Maybe because GPM is just an old unmaintained piece of crap? (Sorry for my rude language, but I think it's the truth.) For X, I think Branden is doing a fine job and I can really see improvenment in the way configuration is done. If you know a better way to do it, did you told it him and/or provide a patch? Jeroen Dekkers -- Jabber supporter - http://www.jabber.org Jabber ID: jdekkers@jabber.org Debian GNU supporter - http://www.debian.org http://www.gnu.org IRC: jeroen@openprojects
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