Re: Diversion of APT tools by dpkg-cross (apt-get,apt-cache,apt-config)

[Paul Jimenez <pj@place.org>]

On Tuesday, Feb 1, 2005, Raphael Bossek writes:
>
>Hi,
>
>I'm a active member of the dpkg-cross package part of the www.emdebian.org project.
>
>A long outstanding feature request was to support APT for dpkg-cross. The realisation
>result in diversion of apt-get, apt-cache and apt-config which is our CVS pending for
>a new release to experimental as soon as the APT wrapper is stable.
>
>The Debian Policy Manaual advice me to discuss this diversion here. Please feel free
>to comment the consequences of this diversion.
>
>dpkg-cross provide a extension for apt-get, apt-cache and apt-config with the command
>line option -a|--arch where your cross-host architecture can be specified. This arch
>is by default your architecture your are developing for using a cross-compiler suite.
>
>If no architecture (-a|--arch) is specified the original implemenations apt-get,
>apt-cache and apt-config are executed instead so nothink changes for those uses who
>do not use this extension.
>
>>From my point of view the extension of the APT tools by diversion do not break today
>functionality. It was one gole not to break today functionality!
>
>--
>Raphael Bossek

I think that -a is only really useful if you can also easily specify the --root option to dpkg.
Right now the only way to get apt to do this is by modifying some of the Dir:: variables and
wedging --root= into the Dpkg::options and... well, it's less than trivial.  So some way to
do that would be a good idea, I think.

Just my .02 from trying to get apt and apt-build to work with dpkg-cross awhile back.

   --pj