Re: Bug#119517: pcmcia-cs: cardinfo binary needs to move into a separate package
Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org> wrote:
> I'd be perfectly happy with a package that wanted some shared library
> only recommending or suggesting that shared library, provided that a
> wrapper script was included for the programs that did not function
> without the shared library to provide a useful error.
Rather than providing a script in each of such package, and duplicating
the same work over and over, why not follow the second of Ian Jackson's
suggestions:
: (b) The libc maintainer could choose to `improve' the error message
: from ld.so so that it was considered suitable for the kinds of users
: Branden presumably wants to avoid seeing it.
This, if done right, would fix the problem once and for all, instead of
on a case by case basis.
Of course, good documentation is probably the best way to handle all
of this. Adding a note in the description that xlibs is needed to run
cardinfo is probably the most useful thing that can be done for the
user.
Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org> also wrote:
> Note that even if you include the wrapper script you may still have
> a bug for wasting space rather than splitting the package. Such a
> bug is likely to be fairly minor and its existence depends on several
> tradeoffs.
I don't follow you here. Surely you don't suggest that a tiny script
would require more space than the overhead associated with an additional
package, do you? Chances are, the size of such a script would not be
much larger than the space required to store only the description (i.e.,
control file data) of the new package. Imagine the difference when we
consider the additional directories and files (copyright, changelog,
etc.) that are required by policy to be included in *each* package.
- Brian
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