Installing debs on shared file-systems (eg NFS)

[Brian May <bam@debian.org>]

Hello All,

I have a proposal to make installing deb packages on systems with
shared file-systems (eg. diskless systems, shared /usr, etc) easier,
and more professional (ie. remove the current "hack" requirement).

However, this involves changing every package, so don't expect results
before hamm, err, I mean woody+1, at the earliest (even this is
probably highly optimistic ;-) ).

See http://snoopy.apana.org.au/~bam/debian/debxml.html for details.

This is a solution to some of the problems I dislike about maintainer
scripts as they are currently implemented.

This proposal also has implications for security when installing
untrusted deb packages, reducing the number of annoying bugs in
maintainer scripts, etc.

It is also my first attempt to write a document in docbook-xml format
<evil grin>.

Please send responses to me, and not to this mailing list. If I get
more then one person replying, I will summarise the responses to this
mailing list. Please tell me if you want your response to remain
private, otherwise I will assume I can repost it here. If I
misinterpret your response, feel free to publicly flame me ;-).

I have delayed sending this because I was worried that there might be
obvious mistakes, so hopefully that is no longer the case now...
-- 
Brian May <bam@debian.org>