Re: "Outside udebs" capability: what are we waiting for?

[Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de>]

Nathanael Nerode <neroden@gcc.gnu.org> writes:

> I wrote this capability almost a year ago.  It's languished in bugs
> #405886, #405888, #389450.
>
> This is the ability to load from a second source of udebs (non-free, for 
> instance, or vendor supplied).

Non-free already works just fine and is already used if you use the
net or include it on the CD and list it in the info file.

> It's utterly straightforward and actually rather uninvasive code.  As designed it 
> doesn't affect the default build yet, even.
>
> Is there some actual reason why this hasn't been integrated yet?  Has an 
> alternative solution been integrated?

Have you solved the problem of having multiple packages with the same
name? With debian main/contrib/non-free that can't happen but with
outside sources it might. And then bad things happen.

> I was told (over a year ago) that lack of installer support for non-free udebs 
> was the main technical reason for not moving the non-free parts of the kernel to 
> non-free where they belong.  If this was true, integration of 
> this should help unblock five "serious" bugs some of which are more than three 
> years old.

And even at that time the non-free support in D-I was already fully
implemented, working and used.

MfG
        Goswin