Dependencies of packages on kernel version
Chris Fearnley writes ("Re: Proposal for a new debian.control field"):
...
> I think using uname in the preinst may be better than yet another
> kludgy dpkg mechanism (someone else suggested this, I'm just agreeing
> with him).
I'm strongly inclined to agree with this. Only a few packages have
these kind of dependencies, and it would be simple to have dpkg
provide a test script that could be used for kernel version testing.
The other solutions proposed are all worse, IMO. Adding a special
dpkg control file field and having dpkg check the kernel version is
adding special-case complexity to dpkg in what I think is an ugly way;
using some kind of special (perhaps virtual) package will involve the
sysadmin in extra hassle persuading dpkg that things are OK; the
current scheme (install the kernel and delete it by hand) is
nonobvious and doesn't cope well with more than very simple and
infrequent requirements.
The test should (for almost all packages) happen in the postinst,
rather than the preinst, I think, but I'm not entirely sure about
this.
Ian.
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