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Re: hurd does NOT need /hurd



On Mon, May 20, 2002 at 04:52:56PM +0200, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> partitioning tools: done upstream, needs only to trickle down
>                     (we need parted > 1.6)

Partitioning tools were *the* hold up with porting the installer last
time I asked. Nice to see something's been done about that.

> installer: oh well, yeah, definitely.  debootstrap won't be too hard
>   (although the lack of translator support in tar calls for a different hack
>   than packaging the /dev directory into a tar file)

What is "/dev" on the Hurd? Debootstrap does it as a tarball because
MAKEDEV is way too slow to run during an install, because (a) it needs
things like /dev/null and such available in the chroot to actually
run dpkg and kin, and (b) nothing else populates /dev for you. (a)'s
obviously still necessary, but for all I know /dev might get populated
by a "devfs"-ish translator, and come essentially for free.

> firewall: I don't see how this is release critical at all.

Attacks over the Internet are so routine -- and connection to the Internet
is so common -- that it's hard to countenance an operating system that
doesn't have at least basic firewalling protection for itself. IMO. I'd
be _very_ hesitant to consider something suitable for dists/stable if
there wasn't something similar to ipfwadm for people to use.

> the glibc ABI change (if that is what is meant with massive incom...)?

The fact that you got hurd-i386 purged to do it. hppa (?) did something
similar a bit under a year ago, and it was similarly concerning. Once
you release, such things have to be done properly. You're fully aware
of this already, of course. So were the hppa people, and I glared at
them for it too.

> > I think the things that's stopping it from a release are the number of
> > packages ported, Marcus could correct me here if I'm right.
> Personally, I couldn't care less if we release with 74% or with 86%, as long
> as all the important packages people rightfully expect to be there are
> indeed there.

The real issue (as far as whether you have a Debian release or not) is
whether you can keep things up to date once they've been ported. That's
not much more of an issue with the Hurd than any other port, though.

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.

     ``BAM! Science triumphs again!'' 
                    -- http://www.angryflower.com/vegeta.gif

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