And policy does or does not dictate sections? On Thu, Dec 02, 1999 at 12:08:11AM -0800, Joey Hess wrote: > 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 Actually, policy is quite out of date on the issue: 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. > -- Please cc all mailing list replies to me, also. ========================================================================= * http://benham.net/index.html <gecko@benham.net> <>< * * -------------------- * -----------------------------------------------* * Debian Developer, Debian Project Secretary, Debian Webmaster * * <gecko@debian.org> <secretary@debian.org> <lintian-maint@debian.org> * * <webmaster@debian.org> <gecko@fortunet.com> <webmaster@spi-inc.org> * =========================================================================
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