RFD: Essential packages, /, and /usr
On Fri, Jun 07, 2002 at 02:55:23PM +1000, Herbert Xu wrote:
> Anyway, there are already plenty of tools in /bin capable of performing
> the task of cut(1).
Sure. I could also write a C program to accomplish the task, and ship
it with my package. Then we'd get useless bloat, especially if other
people followed my example. If Essential tools are in / where people's
init scripts can rely on their existence, everybody wins.
> The root partition is meant to be minimal.
Yes. The set of files provided by Debian's Essential packages is, in
fact, minimal. Are you suggesting that we substitute your judgement of
what is "minimal" for the Debian Policy Manual's?
> So I don't see any point of moving cut there when its functionality is
> there in the form of sed and awk (not to mention the shell itself).
Actually, you're wrong about that:
/usr/bin/awk
/usr/bin/gawk
/usr/bin/mawk
Amusingly, even the tool we tell people to use so that they don't have
to hard-code absolute paths to executables is not available before /usr
is mounted:
/usr/bin/which
...so people can't even use "which" in their early-running init scripts
to determine whether the executables they need exist. Of course, I'm
sure you're already aware of this, as you are of
<http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2002/debian-devel-200205/msg02540.html>.
I'm CCing debian-policy as a means of RFD. I invite your participation
if you have something to contribute beyond "don't do that, then."
--
Branden Robinson | GPG signed/encrypted mail welcome
branden@progeny.com | 1024D/9C0BCBFB
Consultant | D5F6 D4C9 E25B 3D37 068C
Progeny Linux Systems | 72E8 0F42 191A 9C0B CBFB
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: