Re: how to make Debian less fragile (long and philosophical)
On Sun, 15 Aug 1999, Justin Wells wrote:
<lots of good stuff removed>
>
> > The "problem" you are trying to fix is the frailty of human developers who
> > don't always do the "right thing". Debian deals with these problems by
> > having a publicly available "unstable" distribution, so that such problems
> > may be discovered by those willing to risk breaking their systems to find
> > them. It is not intended to provide the general user with the most
> > up-to-date packages, as some folks seem to want to believe.
>
> The problem is fundamentally there, in the stable distribution as well. Since
> Debian is maintained by frail humans, and frail humans make mistakes, the
> idea is to reduce the possibility for error.
>
And we do this by testing the stable release and repairing the mistakes.
> > Can anyone think of a reason this would not be adequate?
>
> Most Unix systems have on root recovery packages, and experienced
> Unix users expect them to be there. According to the debian policy,
> they should therefore be "important" and not something that is only
> installed when specifically requested.
Taking one statement about policy, while disregarding the rest, doesn't
speak to the complete Debian situation.
Policy also requires binaries be stripped for size reasons. Dynamic
linking is done for the same reasons.
While I agree that some of the more crucial components would be more
robust, we have always been able to reduce the breakage by release time,
and there have been much more severe problems in the past than this one.
Several previous releases had such drastic changes in libc that a very
careful upgrade was required for a smooth transition, yet those were made
to work properly as well.
>
> Aside from that, having a system installer that manipulates itself
> introduces a turing problem where you just can't trust anything, since
> it might mess itself up.
I'm not sure exactly what you are suggesting here. Are we never allowed to
upgrade dpkg?
>
> There are many Linux distributions for which stability and reliability
> are not the central issues. Based on Debian's policy, I had thought this
> was a main point of Debiasn--to be more reliable and stable than
> other Linux distributions. Perhaps I just think that for no reason,
> and it's not more of an issue here than elsewhere.
>
Well, I _do_ think stability and reliability are "central" issues for
Debian, I just think we have a different idea about how to accomplish
that, that doesn't include static binaries.
These are decissions that were made many many releases ago, and we _do_
still have a reputation for quality, so I'm having trouble seeing just why
you think dynamic linking is unreliable. Don't get me wrong, I understand
everything you have said on this subject, I just don't draw the same
negative conclusions that you seem to.
> However, if it is, then you have to pay attention to details like
> this: some basic guarantees that the system can fix itself are
> important to a reliable system, and you can't have those guarantees
> when the core system recovery and package managmeent tools have
> complicated dependencies.
>
Complicated dependencies? I thought we were discussing static versus
dynamic linking for core packages.
Dependencies are the major strength of Debian, not a weakness.
One of the problems with what you are asking for is that it will require a
major change in several fundamental ways we do the business of
development. You are asking that the dpkg suite be completely redesigned
to remove "tricky" dependencies, and that all, as yet undefined, core
packages be dealt with the same way.
I don't mean to suggest that this is not an appropriate idea to have, or
promote, but I would suggest that you take the issue to the policy group.
This is the proper place for such discussions, and those on the policy
list are conversant with _all_ the aspects of policy that may be effected
by this "redesign".
However, personally, I think you have missed the point about stability and
reliability. While they may be enhanced by static linkage, there are other
issues that are degraded by the same actions. Creating a distribution is
about balance and integration, and it isn't clear to me that your proposal
buys us anything we don't already have through other means.
I _do_ think we should provide some static packages for recovery purposes
for those folks like yourself who feel more comfortable with that sort of
"backup system", but I don't think we should redesign the distribution to
be more UNIX like in this regard. Linux is derived from UNIX, but it
_isn't_ UNIX. Debian is unique in many ways with respect to other Linux
distributions. I'm not sure we want to move in the direction you are
suggesting, but I _am_ willing to be convinced.
Waiting is,
Dwarf
--
_-_-_-_-_- Author of "The Debian Linux User's Guide" _-_-_-_-_-_-
aka Dale Scheetz Phone: 1 (850) 656-9769
Flexible Software 11000 McCrackin Road
e-mail: dwarf@polaris.net Tallahassee, FL 32308
_-_-_-_-_-_- See www.linuxpress.com for more details _-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Reply to: