Bug#112090: PROPOSAL]: support reduced footprint debs at build time

[Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>]

David Kimdon wrote:
> boot-floppies - when we are creating the _install_ root filesystem we
> apt-get a bunch of binary packages, extract them into a temporary
> area, remove stuff we don't want, do library reduction etc..  Some of
> the packages that we grab are special *-bf packages, smaller versions
> built specifically for boot floppies. _no one_ else uses them except
> for people buliding boot-floppies.
> 
> debian-installer - we apt-get a bunch of .udebs, then build our little
> fs. _no one_ else uses them except for people building
> debian-installer.
> 
> Proposed:
> 
> Both systems grab source pacakages during the build, rather than
> binaries.  embedded is put into DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS, and the packages
> are compiled small, fit for boot-floppies or debian-installer.  We
> then take those generated binary packages and build our install disk.

Sorry, no. debian-installer's design demands that the actual .udeb
packages are available on the archive. They won't all fit on the install
disk.

Also, your idea ignores part of the reason behind udebs, which is to let
the installer be maintained in a distributed manner like the rest of
debian.

-- 
see shy jo