Re: debian-devel-digest Digest V98 #69

[Barak Pearlmutter <bap@cs.unm.edu>]

You know, Alan Davis may may be arguing poorly and emotionally in this
getcherhandoff /usr/src/linux thread, but he's right about two things:

 1. It will be a constant source of confusion to new or careless or
    impatient users and of aggravation to debian developers if
    "cd /usr/src; tar zxf linux-XXX.tar.gz" screws up the packaging
    system.  Unending headaches for everyone.

 2. There is no technical reason debian packages cannot, as a
    precautionary measure, be careful not to create or assume anything
    about /usr/src/linux/.  All packages that currently refer to that
    location could just as easily refer to /usr/src/linux-debian or
    something like that.

Think of it not as a bow to backward compatibility but as a robustness
measure, to make sure people don't break the package system in a
confusing way the first time they read in a linux book "it's easy to
build a new kernel, just ..."

The filesystem standard really isn't an issue here --- it does not
violate the standard if no debian packages happen to touch
/usr/src/linux.

					Barak Pearlmutter
					http://www.cs.unm.edu/~bap/

PS I personally would have found it much easier to figure out how to
compile a kernel "the debian way" using make-kpkg if there had been a
25 line file /usr/src/README.debian saying "To make a custom kernel
package do XXXX (for details see /usr/doc/ker.../README.gz), to make
corresponding PCMCIA stuff do XXXX (see ....)"

PPS To get really pedantic about the filesystem standard, make-kpkg
should be rewritten to assume that the kernel .config file lives in
/etc/linux/.config, and to write all files produced during compilation
to /var/src/linux/*.o or /var/tmp/ or something.  I'm not proposing
that, just pointing out that saying "the filesystem standard says we
can so we will so nyah nyah nyah and quitcherbellyachin" might not be
the optimal way to think about the tradeoffs involved here.


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