Re: What's Debian's /usr/src policy
Dale Scheetz wrote:
> I never understood why the kernel source was made into a .deb package. It
> doesn't make sense to me.
I agree with this, I see nothing wrong with just having it available as a
source package, perhaps with kernel-package merged into it as the debian/
directory.
> I also don't see any point in "managing" a
> binary package of the kernel either. The system doesn't gain anything by
> having dpkg know which kernel binaries are installed either.
I was a skeptic about this too, 6 months ago. Now I've been using
kernel-package for a while and I see many advantages. You can compile a kernel
once and install the resulting .deb on multiple machines. You can keep old
versions of the kernel in .deb's so you can downgrade if problems arise. You
can use it to manage multiple installed kernels as well. You get a consitent
kernel install, even if "make-kpkg" is run by a newbie, so it makes
debugging other's problems easier as well.
Using a debian package for the kernel also enables packages to depend on a
certian version of the kernel, etc. We get all the benefits you'd see when
making a .deb of any other program.
> The binary thus installed still needs to be configured for lilo or
> loadlin or grub, so what's the point?
The kernel package postinst can handle lilo configuration already, it
wouldn't be too hard to add grub support too.
--
see shy jo
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