Re: Question regarding policy (11.2)
Dale E Martin wrote:
> > Adding 1100 additional packages to debian, and 800 mb[1] additional to be
> > downloaded every apt update is unambiguously bloat.
>
> (As you've stated elsewhere, 800kB not millibits ;-)) Balance that against
> the case where anyone downloading -dev packages right now is forced to get
> static libs when they probably don't want or need them. We shouldn't get
> rid of the them outright, as people have demonstrated a real need to have
> static libs in some cases. But I like the idea of -dev and -static-dev
> packages, personally.
>
> If the size of the Packages download on apt-get update is an issue are
> there other ways of reducing that, such as rsync/diff Package file updates
> as the norm? (No, I'm not volunteering to implement this, but it seems
> like this has come up in the past.)
As I say every time this comes up, the download size of the Packages
file is only part of it. There is also the increased memory necessary to
run apt and dpkg, the extra time to wade through additional packages.
Adding this many additional packages to debian knocks a certian
percentage of utter-low-end machines off the low end of the curve,
rendering them unfit to run debian at all.
Machines that people do compiles on can probably stand to lose the disk
space for static libraries, and they are surely only a fraction of
debian machines. Machines that people do compiles on and that have slow
network connections are probably even more in the minority[1]. I think
we need to be very careful before doing blanket optimizations for such a
small case of machines to bear in mind other classes of machines, such as:
- very low resource machines almost overloaded with the current
packaging system
- end-user machines on dialup
> > And it wouldn't provide any significant choice.
>
> As others have pointed out, it would let you download the bits of -dev that
> make sense for your particular situation.
The same argument could be used as a rationalle for any degree of
over-the-top package splitting. "But I want to download only binaries
without documentation, so split off 4 thousand -doc packages." I don't
think it flies.
FWIW, I'm not at all against splitting out -static packages on a
case-by-case basis, as used to be done for X's libs. But there's nothing
in policy to prohibit that anyway.
--
see shy jo
[1] minority I'm in
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