Re: Questions regarding the base system
From: Christoph Lameter <clameter@waterf.org>
> I looked at the base system and I think we should remove adduser from it.
> I dont think it is essential to be able to add users in a minimal system.
> It is needed right now just to create one initial user.
> Perhaps we could live without it?
It's quite small.
> Why is the MBR package in the base system? And why does lilo depend on
> mbr?
MBR is necessary for boot compatibility with other operating systems.
It makes it possible to boot DOS/Windows/OS2 by changing the active
boot partition, and it gets rid of all of those "How do I remove LILO?"
questions, because LILO doesn't go on the Master Boot Record when we
use MBR. MBR is _very_ small. We used to have a lot more LILO
complaints/questions before we used it.
> What is the purpose of the syslinux package in the base?
SysLinux is used to make the boot floppy during the installation
procedure. It provides a working "boot:" prompt, which you don't
get if you just DD the kernel to the floppy. It's very small.
> There is a kernel image in rex's base.
Oops. That's a mistake.
> I am not very clear on the reason why there is fdflush and update? Do not
> both do the same thing?
Fdflush is used to work around a bad disk-change switch in a floppy drive.
If you call it, it discards all of the old buffers from the disk. This was
a major problem during installation.
Is "update" obsolete with the 2.0 kernels? I know that "bdflush" is.
> Would it be possible to generate a standard.tar.gz like a base.tar.gz
> containing all standard packages?
> And an optional.tar.gz with all optional packages in it?
The problem is that you would have to merge the /var/lib/dpkg/status
entries after extracting standard.tar.gz . It's probably better to make
an archive of packages and have dpkg install them. Your other choice would
be to make an archive of base+standard, and base+standard+optional, so that
the merging would not be necessary.
Thanks
Bruce
--
Bruce Perens, Pixar Animation Studios
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