[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Proposal for solution to the PXE install support when offline



Hi Petter,

On Dienstag, 7. April 2009, Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
> Nope, it is not safe to assume.  The DVD installs need to work without
> Internet access.

They would work. They would just miss on feature. Which can still be enabled 
once network access is there. 

So it's not *that* big of a deal.

> >> I tried last summer to convince the Debian Installer developer team
> >> to make debs of the d-i images, but no-one found time to work on
> >> it, and it is thus missing for Lenny.
> > URL? Bug report?
> A quick google search did not lead me anywhere, and I do not have more
> time to track it down.

Please do or file a new bug. If we are serious about becoming Debian, we need 
to work on it.

> A package with similar needs (and I discussed this need with its
> author) is documented on
> <URL:http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/NetbootAssistant>.
> Perhaps the author remember any URLs.

Maybe you can contact him?

Please note that there is also a d-i team meeting scheduled for April 11th at 
20:00 UTC - maybe you can propose the problem and a solution for squeeze 
there? 

> > I've looked at the package now and I have to reject it. The binary
> > package contains software without sources in the source package and
> > it also lacks copyright information about the binaries in there.
> > Thats really not acceptable if we want to call ourselves "_Debian_
> > Edu".
> Oh, come on.  With this argument, the d-i boot images on the CDs and
> DVDs needs to be removed too.  We do not have the source for theses
> either.

I assume we include a written offer to deliver the sources if asked for. If 
not, it's a serious bug, but no reason to make the same mistake twice.

Also, I'd be _much happier_ to include the tarballs as tarballs on the DVD. 
Tarballs are tarballs, while with .deb's d-i-bootimages breaks one central 
assumption of .debs: that you can rebuild them from source packages alone. 
That's not true for d-i bootimages.

> "I do not
> believe this problem is important and do not like the proposed
> solutions" is not really a useful approach to solving the problems we
> need to fix, and I hope we can avoid ending up there.

"I believe this problem is really really important and needs to be fixed and I 
don't care if the solution breaks basic assumptions like that a .deb can be 
rebuild from .dsc and orig.tar.gz alone" is not useful neither.

> The archive policy is there to make sure we have the long term goal of
> getting all we want in Debian in sight all the time, not to make it
> impossible to find short term solutions to real problems that need to
> be solved before the release.

If policy is just a handwaver which we can break whenever we "need" to solve 
shortterm problems, it's worthless.

Not filing a bug in the Debian BTS shows me there is no initiative (or not 
enough) to fix this properly, which is what greatly contributes to my 
reservation about this approach. Plus, a .deb aint a tarball, .debs come with 
sources. We are Debian.


regards,
	Holger

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.


Reply to: