Re: Submitting bugs ? (Was: Getting rid of section "base" ?)
Darren O. Benham wrote, about the removal of the base section:
> Is this, basicly, a part of policy now?
Actually, policy is quite out of date on the issue:
2.3.6. Base packages
--------------------
The packages included in the `base' section have a special function.
They form a minimum subset of the Debian GNU/Linux system that is
installed before everything else on a new system. Thus, only very few
packages are allowed to go into the `base' section to keep the required
disk usage very small.
Most of these packages should have the priority value `required' or at
least `important', and many of them will be tagged `essential' (see
below).
You must not place any packages into the `base' section before this has
been discussed on the debian-devel' mailing list and a consensus about
doing that has been reached.
Since Adam tells us this is no longer true and the boot-floppies team
decides what goes in the base system, and since we seem to have a consensus
that the base section is then unnecessary, policy needs to be updated.
Since other parts of policy refer to "the base system", we still need some
definition of what that system is, or quite a few paragraphs (see end of
this email) would need to be changed. Here is one way we could reword policy:
| 2.3.6. The base system
----------------------
|
| The base system is a minimum subset of the Debian GNU/Linux system that is
installed before everything else on a new system. Thus, only very few
| packages are allowed to go into the base system to keep the
| required disk usage very small.
Most of these packages should have the priority value `required' or at
least `important', and many of them will be tagged `essential' (see
below).
You must not place any packages into the `base' section before this has
been discussed on the `debian-devel' mailing list and a consensus about
doing that has been reached.
I considered making some change to say that debian-boot has control of what
goes in there, but I don't think that's really necessary.
--
see shy jo
Appendix: references to "base" in policy:
The Debian base distribution provides the `tempfile' and `mktemp'
utilities for use by scripts for this purpose.
...
If a package needs any special device files that are not included in
the base system, it has to call `makedev' in the `postinst' script,
after asking the user for permission to do so.
...
You must ask for a user or group id from the base system maintainer,
and must not release the package until you have been allocated one.
Once you have been allocated one you must make the package depend on a
version of the base system with the id present in /etc/passwd' or
`/etc/group', or alternatively arrange for your package to
create the user or group itself with the correct id (using `adduser')
in its pre-or post-installation script (the latter is to be preferred
if it is possible).
On the other hand, the program may able to determine the uid or gid
from the group name at runtime, so that a dynamic id can be used. In
this case you must choose an appropriate user or group name, discussing
this on `debian-devel' and checking with the base system maintainer that
it is unique and that they do not wish you to use a statically
allocated id instead. When this has been checked you must arrange for
your package to create the user or group if necessary using adduser' in
the pre- or post-installation script (again, the latter is to be
preferred if it is possible).
(I think these two paragraphs are just out of date, they should be talking
about base-passwd.)
These are two scripts provided in the Debian base system that check the
EDITOR and PAGER variables and launches the appropriate program or
falls back to `/usr/bin/editor' and `/usr/bin/pager', automatically.
...
Since the Debian base system already provides an editor and a pager
program, there is no need for a package to depend on `editor' and
`pager', nor is it necessary for a package to provide such virtual
packages.
...
The mail spool is /var/spool/mail' and the interface to send a mail
message is `/usr/sbin/sendmail' (as per the FHS). The mail spool is
part of the base system and not part of the MTA package.
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