Bug#421701: initrd-tools are not needed for etch's kernels

[Tomas Pospisek <tpo_deb@sourcepole.ch>]

Package: initrd-tools
Version: 0.1.84.2
Severity: minor
Tags: patch

The package Description says:

"tools to create initrd image for prepackaged Linux kernel
 This package contains tools needed to generate an initrd image suitable
 for booting a prepackaged Linux kernel image (as shipped with the Debian
 main distribution).  It does not cater for other uses of initrd at the
 moment."

As far as as know [1] initrd-tools are no more needed for current Debian
kernels.

Having initrd-tools installed will by default generates initrd type boot RAM
disks (unless not configured differently of course) which are not compatible
with uswsusp, that requires initramfs images. Thus deinstalling or
deconfiguring initrd-tools is necessary when using uswsusp.

So I'd suggest to change the description as follows, so that people can
deinstall initrd-tools:

"tools to create initrd image for older prepackaged Linux kernel
 This package contains tools needed to generate an initrd image suitable
 for booting older prepackaged Linux kernel images (as shipped with the
 oldstable sarge Debian main distribution).  It does not cater for other
 uses of initrd at the moment."

I do not know the new initramfs tools work on all the platforms for the shipped
2.6 kernel in etch - thus this should probably be verified before - or
whether they're even only necessary for the older 2.4er kernel. This should be
verified in order to provide a precise package description.
*t

[1] http://kernel-handbook.alioth.debian.org/ch-initramfs.html
                                                                                                                 


-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages initrd-tools depends on:
hi  coreutils [fileutils]        5.97-5.3    The GNU core utilities
ii  cpio                         2.7-1       GNU cpio -- a program to manage ar
ii  cramfsprogs                  1.1-6       Tools for CramFs (Compressed ROM F
ii  dash                         0.5.3-7     The Debian Almquist Shell
hi  fileutils                    5.97-5.3    The GNU file management utilities 
ii  libdevmapper1.02             2:1.02.08-1 The Linux Kernel Device Mapper use
hi  util-linux                   2.12r-19    Miscellaneous system utilities

initrd-tools recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information