a study topic for advanced maintainers

[bruce@pixar.com (Bruce Perens)]

Try to create a working system on an empty partition using "dpkg" and
the individual packages that make up the base system. Look at the current
boot-floppies source for basedisks.sh, and see how it solves the
chicken-and-egg problem. Can you:

A: Make the entire system install-able using only "dpkg" by severely
   limiting the options available to pre- and post-install scripts
   in base packages, and constraining the order in which those packages
   are installed.

B: Provide a special package that bootstraps enough environment that
   other packages will install. Generate this package automaticaly from
   the contents of other packages. Make it smaller than the entire base
   system.

C: Re-write dpkg in some way so that just installing all of the base
   packages on an empty system will work.

D: Copy the basedisks.sh procedure, and run it on the hard disk when
   installing the system. Make the result smaller, faster, and better
   than the status quo.

E: Solve the problem in some other creative fashion.

	Thanks

	Bruce
--
Bruce Perens, Pixar Animation Studios
*** "Toy Story" video tape in U.S. stores October 30 ***
Worldwide box office total for "Toy Story": $353,275,005

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