Re: debian-devel-digest Digest V98 #69
Is the wool being pulled over my eyes?
> From: Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@datasync.com>
> You break Debian policy on your machine
> (as is your right), then Debian is no longer responsible for
> support.
The point, for me, would not be whether one would be breaking "Debian
policy," but rather that Debian policy becomes a whole new concept,
disparate in some sense from the way linux has 'traditionally' done things.
Why is this necessary?
> Avery> But why must the packages fiddle with /usr/src/linux itself?
> Avery> People manually installing a kernel will try to put it there.
> Avery> People may overwrite debian files with their kernel by
> Avery> accident. No debian tools I know of need that link. And now I
> Avery> can't upgrade libc6 if I've unpacked a kernel!
>
> As I said, we follow Standards (unlike microsoft ;-). If you
> have a problem with the standards, take it up eith the standards
> committee. You break Debian policy, you have no right to complain.
"Standards"? What is standard about not being able to unpack a plain
vanilla source heirarchy and have it work as expected? What is standard
about a distribution forking off with its own series of kludges? Is it a
standard to type "debian.rules" or whatever instead of "make"? You've bent,
twisted, and warped the meaning of the word standard and shoehorned yourself
into this new revised definition.
> Avery> This is going to confuse users.
>
> Only if they have preset incorrect preconceptions.
It confuses me. I object to this statement.
Would it take too much skill or subtlety to build the system such that it
would not break if one choses to install his own kernel in the way that has
been done since before debian came into existence? What do you prove by
demonstrating that it might be just as good, even better, to do it another
way? (If not a sense of self-satisfaction?)
Most important, what harm would come of doing things in a way that would
make sense to any linux user, and not just the well initiated debian freak?
I think if you cannot answer this, you are on an ego trip. Reminds me of
how VMS has its own instructions to compile packages for most software.
(Your answer to the last question will be taken into consideration as I mull
over whether to remain with this distribution, that I have been using
exclusively for perhaps three years, perhaps longer.)
When I am told that if I follow the instructions that come with the kernel I
am breaking "debian policy," then I see that certain luminaries have come to
represent an alternative, and CERTAINLY NOT A(n implicit) STANDARD. Maybe
the reason I have been almost always unable to compile a new 2.1.XX kernel
is that I have broken "Debian Policy" without ever really understanding it.
How are you going to get the news out to new users that there is a different
way to compile kernels than in the normal linux FAQ's, and it's (so it is
argued) better?
Flame me if you will; I don't care any more---I'll probably be looking for a
new linux distribution soon. I have read several of your explanations as to
why your way is better. I'm not convinced.
(Apologies for the "bandwidth".)
I've really been trying. I picked up books on C so I could compile packages
I needed, and I've had to roll my own many times. Early instructions for
compiling the kernel, in the halcyon days of the LDP, if followed to the
letter, worked, and it didn't depend upon which distribution you had
installed. If it did, you had a pathological distribution. I fear that
is what may be happening here. I expect flames, cause this is a holy icon to
many, but I, of the "preset misguided preconceptions," who, I am sorry to
say, have never contributed anything to debian, have reached a borderline I
am unwilling to cross. It's something I feel I ought to express, before I
(probably) move along. I've never been so close to jumping ship. Then it
won't bother me anymore what kind of fantastic innovations you come up with.
Alan Davis
"Even the butler has something to prove." ---B. Dylan
--
"Our loyalties are to the species and the Alan E. Davis
planet. We speak for Earth. Our adavis@netpci.com
obligation to survive is owed not just to Marianas High School
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and vast, from which we spring." Saipan, MP 96950
Northern Mariana Islands
---Carl Sagan GMT+10
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