Re: What's Debian's /usr/src policy
On Tue, 6 Jan 1998, Hamish Moffatt wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 05, 1998 at 05:48:27PM -0500, Dale Scheetz wrote:
> > I never understood why the kernel source was made into a .deb package. It
>
> Because it's something we expect people will want to recompile,
> so we should make it readily available to them.
A proper source package (.diff, .dsc, and orig.tar.gz) is smaller, and the
user can get the orig.tar.gz from other sources, making the download from
Debian trivial. How is this less "readily available"?
>
> > doesn't make sense to me. 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. The binary
> > thus installed still needs to be configured for lilo or loadlin or grub,
> > so what's the point?
>
> I think it does gain something; it is much easier to have multiple
> versions around. If I compile a new 2.1 kernel and find that
> it is not too good (like 2.1.76 seems to have broken sound
> for me so I went back to 2.1.72), I can just reinstall the old
> one with dpkg. I don't need to edit my lilo config, play with
> symlinks in / etc.
>
When I try a new kernel and it doesn't work, I only have to edit
lilo.config an run lilo to get back to the old one (actually I always
leave hooks in lilo to get back to the "old" kernel). No package
installation is required.
I will also never feel comfortable with an automatic process editing my
lilo.config file. I am set up to boot several linux partitions as well as
a dos partition and a loop-root system. I am much happier editing that
beast myself thankyou ;-)
Luck,
Dwarf
--
_-_-_-_-_-_- Author of "The Debian User's Guide" _-_-_-_-_-_-_-
aka Dale Scheetz Phone: 1 (904) 656-9769
Flexible Software 11000 McCrackin Road
e-mail: dwarf@polaris.net Tallahassee, FL 32308
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