Re: non-essential required packages
On Thu, Nov 02, 2000 at 02:06:02PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> Of those remaining,
>
> console-data/console-tools/console-tools-libs
> ldso, makedev, procps
>
> look like good candidates for essential: yes markers, at least for the
> architectures that actually use them.
console-tools is has an alternative, kbd -- unless the latter is removed, we
shouldn't make any one of them essential. I doubt any package's p* scripts
are using any of those programs anyway.
ldso is obsoleted by latest libc6 in woody, and IIRC a bug has already been
filed in order to have it moved to optional, because it's only useful for
libc5 stuff.
makedev is basically a very smart wrapper around mknod, so it isn't really
essential because you can recreate devices with mknod (fileutils) and a copy
of /usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.txt file :) It might be useful to
have it essential for the sake of packages' p* scripts using it, though.
procps does seem like something that needs to be on every system, I doubt
any admin could do anything without ps or kill. I reckon many scripts rely
on both of those to be available, too.
> OTOH,
>
> adduser, ae, mbr, modutils, passwd, setserial, sysklogd
>
> are all probably downgradable to either "important" (your system can be
> recovered without these packages, but you're insane if you don't have
> them), or lower.
Actually, you're not necessarily insane if you don't have them :)
My opinions:
adduser standard {user,group}{add,del} exist in passwd
ae optional the Installation system can include it
on boot disks without it having a high
priority; otherwise it's definitely optional
mbr optional several alternatives for MBR exist
passwd important it is really important
setserial standard|optional most serial ports should work without
it, no?
sysklogd important alternative(s) exists
> I've filed a bug against ae to this effect already, btw.
Please file bugs against the others, too. :)
--
Digital Electronic Being Intended for Assassination and Nullification
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