On 22/09/2015 14:50, Nico Schlömer wrote:
>> I'm just comparing how the old (10.0.4.dsfg-1.1) package was built in
>> Debian. The old packaging produced 5 binary packages, your new
>> packaging produces 94!
>> Is this really necessary?
>
> The structure of Trilinos is much better reflected by this many packages
> than it was with 5. In many ways, Trilinos works like Boost, particularly
> in that it is essentially a collection of "packages". I didn't see a
> disadvantage in having many packages either. Perhaps that presents a
> problem somewhere?
The disadvantage is that adding packages adds to amount of data that
everyone has to download on every update (not only those who have your
packages installed).
It also increases the size of the dependency graph that package managers
like apt need to handle. There was a thread on debian-mentors [1] about
this some time ago.
Basically, for packages with high install counts like libboost and
libreoffice, it makes sense to split the packages (e.g. a user of
English help is unlikely to install help in any other language). For
packages with low install counts, and whose users are likely to install
most of the packages anyway, it does not make sense to split the packages.
Ultimately, the decision lies with ftpmaster whether this package will
be accepted, and they will ask 'Is there a valid reason to provide a new
binary package?', see 'Checks for new binary packages' [2].
[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2014/04/msg00256.html
[2] https://ftp-master.debian.org/NEW-checklist.html