Re: Reducing installed package size
Hello,
> Just a opinion: Would it be possible to prevent dpkg writing these files
> to the system at all? Think of flash devices, where write cycles are
> expensive.
Good point! However in most cases people use jffs2 or something similar. So
there are chances that the files are still in the filesystem buffer/cache when
they are deleted. However we cannot exclude that writes do occur, but
unfortunately we will have to do a serious rewrite of dpkg to prohibit it of
writing out files.
> > The proposal consists of two packages:
> >
> > * doc purge : removes stuff from /usr/share/doc
> > * man purge : removes stuff /usr/share/man (localepurge already removes
> > localized ones, but it might be interesting to remove everything)
> >
> > Any comments or ideas on this?
>
> I think this is reasonable, but I think this could break packages in
> subtle ways. Is it mandated by policy that /usr/share/doc and
> /usr/share/man may be deleted by the local admin without breaking
> the 'essential functionality' of the package? (But honestly, I cannot
> give an example for this right now. Perhaps some symlinks to some file
> in /usr/share/doc/$package/examples)
Well it is a valid point, but just as in the case of the localepurge package
we cannot really take responsability for that. I also believe that the chances
of having a package breaking in such a way are very small. Eventually we can
put some logic in the removal scripts that it leaves files with a higher link
count in place.
Regards,
Philippe
PS to Bruno : The new modular X already makes it possible to install less
unneeded X stuff
| Philippe De Swert
|
| GPE developer: http://gpe.handhelds.org
| Emdebian developer: http://www.emdebian.org
|
| Please do not send me documents in a closed
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