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Re: [Emdebian] apt-get on embedded systems



On Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:54:00 +0200
Hector Oron <hector.oron@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> What about other options?
> 
> a) !(apt||dpkg) && really minimalistic grip

Grip can't work without perl and dpkg because Grip doesn't change
anything in the rest of the Debian packages. Changing packages means
using Crush methods. It's inherent in Grip methods that Grip cannot
change anything that had to be compiled. 

Grip could possibly work without apt - I was thinking of that option.
Hopefully have that in emdebian-grip 1.9.2.

>   Use grip method but trying to make it as small as posible without
> the posibility to update or upgrade the system, just making it static
> for that device. User case: I want to bootstrap a Debian based system,
> but once I get it working I do not want to run apt on it

Hmm, that was something I was looking at earlier for multistrap -
optionally not selecting from Priority: required. (the
get_required_debs subroutine in em_multistrap).

For now, just try commenting out the call to get_required_debs in
em_multistrap and seeing what breaks. ;-)

Making things smaller than that is already possible - work with
debootstrap to write a suite script that reduces the number of packages
installed. Take a look at the various suite scripts used with Crush
methods and point debootstrap at the Grip archive using the modified
suite script. (Test with your own host arch first.)

> b) crush on python

(I think you mean python support in Crush)

>   I believe there are some attempts to bring up python to Debian
> instead perl, somebody knows how far these projects has gone? I think
> this way should simplify things to get crush working better.

python does not cross-build - just the same problem as perl with the
added problem that I cannot debug a broken python build let alone
cross-build.

AFAICT Debian is not replacing perl with python, it is possible that
python will be added into the same kind of roles as perl but that is
quite different (and makes our lives harder, not easier).

However, python will be very important for Grip - it is heavily used in
openmoko. See #524073 for a MAJOR barrier to the use of python -
currently python-gtk (the basis of any python GUI apps) depends on the
truly massive ATLAS computational library *AND* FORTRAN! Yes,
libfortran3 is now *mandatory* on any device running a GUI python app
in unstable. Yuck.

It's bad enough that xauth depends on cpp (Crush avoids this problem
but Grip is stuck with it).

Seems like the price of a small Debian system is constant vigilance on
incessant dependency bloat.

-- 


Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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