Bug#2890: dpkg has dependancy on GCC

[Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>]

Brian C. White writes ("Bug#2890: dpkg has dependancy on GCC"):
> Package: dpkg
> Maintainer: Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>
> Version: 1.1.3
>
> It seems that dpkg calls GCC for its architecture information.  This causes
> 'dftp' to give errors on machines that don't have GCC installed.  Could
> 'uname' be used instead?

Ah.  This is so that if you try to cross-compile or something like
that you get the right value.  dpkg --print-architecture prints the
*build* architecture, and the value doesn't correspond to the value
that dpkg will accept in the Architecture field of a package it is
installing.

This latter value can be found in the output of dpkg --version:
 Debian GNU/Linux `dpkg' package management program version 1.1.5 (i386).
 Copyright 1994,1995 Ian Jackson, Bruce Perens.  This is free software;
 see the GNU General Public Licence version 2 or later for copying
 conditions.  There is NO warranty.  See dpkg --licence for details.

Obviously this is not a satisfactory solution for you.  I'll make a
separate `dpkg --print-installation-architecture' flag.

Could you change dftp to use that, and if it fails to parse the output
of dpkg --version ?

The --print-installation-architecture option will be in 1.1.7; I'll
close this bug report.

Thanks,
Ian.