Re: Policy wrt Important (was Re: dc and bc in Important?)
On Thu, 26 Jun 1997 branden@apocalypse.sequitur.org wrote:
> On 25 Jun 1997, John Goerzen wrote:
>
> > OK, then I suspect the policy is at fault. (BTW, I checked it out and
> > I did find dc and bc on SunOS -- I had not known these programs were
> > on other OSs.)
>
> Yes, bc and dc have been very standard on most kinds of Unices for a very
> long time. And being able to do math on the console is indispensable for
> those of us who don't wear HP 48GX's around our necks.
>
> > By the current definition of Important:
> > * Sendmail should be there instead of smail since people expect
> > sendmail
>
> Sendmail is not a user-level program; i.e., it is very seldom that a user
> invokes it directly. Furthermore, I believe it is the case that the
> /usr/sbin/sendmail that ships with smail is argument-compatible with
> sendmail.
I agree (FWIW) sendmail is a bear to configure and a security hazard.
Just because everyone else hangs their butts out in the breeze, that does
not mean Debian has to. BTW, the next smail release will have anti-relay
and other security features.
>
> > * dpkg-dev should not be there since no experienced user of another
> > Unix would expect it
>
> No, but it's very important for a Debian Linux distribution.
We are not installing Unix. We are installing Debian Linux.
Linux != Unix
> > * lilo should not be there because lilo is not part of UNIX
>
> No, but it is usually important for Linux distributions in general. You
> would like to be able to boot your Unix clone, wouldn't you?
Again, we are not installing Unix.
>
> > And:
> > * gcc should be in Important because everybody expects a C compiler
But it is not required or even important to run anything.
> > * libc5-dev should be there because everybody expects working
> > header files
But if you have no compiler, why do you need headers.
> > * make should be there, I expect a working make in any Unix
Again, unless you need to compile something, there is no need for it.
There is no need for any of the above to run debian if the default kernel
works.
> > * lpr should be there, it is standard with just about any Unix
Agreed. Not because they are part of unix, but because most are going to
want to print something at some point. It is a basic computer function
thing.
> > * netbase and netstd should both be there, they are standard
> > on Unix
Again, agreed but not because it is part of Unix, just about anyone using
Linux is going to be on the internet, it is probably how they found out
about it.
> > * csh/tcsh should be there (again, standard on various Unices)
Not in the default installation. Who uses these anyway? :)
George Bonser
grep@oriole.sbay.org, grep@concentric.net
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