Re: POSIX shell; bash ash pdksh & /bin/sh
Hi,
>>"Alex" == <aqy6633@acf5.nyu.edu> writes:
Alex> The argument of backward compatibility is a strong
Alex> one. Backward compatibility is a good thing. But we already
Alex> have an example of an OS which tries to be backward compatible
Alex> at all cost - including all its bugs and "excess baggage" of
Alex> this OS is enormous. While we probably all agree that size of
Alex> the installed operating environment with all bells and whistles
Alex> will grow with time, it is very important to retain ability to
Alex> boot the system with only minimal (and small) configuration.
Yes, very true. We should then make sure that the essential
flag is given very, very seldom. The resona is that once given, the
essential flag is very hard to get rid off -- and certainly should
not be removed on a whim. I do not think we are very bloated with
essential packages at the moment; but Alex ir correct: we should be
very strict about essentiality.
I certainly do not think we are in the same situation that
Alex alludes to (bug-for-bug compatibility).
manoj
__> egrep ^Package /var/lib/dpkg/available | wc -l
2324
__> perl ~/find_pkg.pl '^Essential:' | grep ^Package | wc -l
26
__> perl -e 'print 26.0/2324.0, "\n"'
0.0111876075731497
__> perl ~/find_pkg.pl '^Essential:' | grep ^Package
Package: ncurses-base
Package: textutils
Package: bsdutils
Package: sed
Package: base-passwd
Package: util-linux
Package: update
Package: ncurses-bin
Package: tar
Package: ldso
Package: gzip
Package: dpkg
Package: base-files
Package: findutils
Package: shellutils
Package: grep
Package: mount
Package: e2fsprogs
Package: sysvinit
Package: perl-base
Package: hostname
Package: login
Package: fileutils
Package: diff
Package: bash
Package: debianutils
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Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@acm.org> <http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>
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