Now that /sbin/fsck is provided by util-linux it should be possible to
drop the Essential attribute from the e2fsprogs. How do we do this?

e2fsprogs is not needed when the system uses other file systems or does
not have its own (e.g. openvz and lxc containers) and removing it would
save a few MB.

--
ciao,
Marco

Marco d'Itri wrote:
> Now that /sbin/fsck is provided by util-linux it should be possible to
> drop the Essential attribute from the e2fsprogs. How do we do this?

The whole archive needs to be scanned to see if no functionality of
e2fsprogs is used without (build) dependency. Dropping the flag itself
is just uploading e2fsprogs AFAICS.

Cheers

Luk


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Marco d'Itri wrote:
> Now that /sbin/fsck is provided by util-linux it should be possible to
> drop the Essential attribute from the e2fsprogs. How do we do this?

Does that also mean initscripts will be dropping its dependency on
e2fsprogs?

Also, what new priority should it get?
Debian Installer already ensures e2fsprogs gets installed if ext[234] are
used, so from that PoV there's no problem.

Cheers,
FJP


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On Sunday 07 February 2010, Frans Pop wrote:
> Does that also mean initscripts will be dropping its dependency on
> e2fsprogs?

Just see it's already been lowered to recommends (I had an older version of
initscripts installed).


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On Feb 07, Luk Claes <luk@debian.org> wrote:

> The whole archive needs to be scanned to see if no functionality of
> e2fsprogs is used without (build) dependency.
So, how can this be done?

--
ciao,
Marco

On Feb 07, Luk Claes <luk@debian.org> wrote:

> The whole archive needs to be scanned to see if no functionality of
> e2fsprogs is used without (build) dependency. Dropping the flag itself
> is just uploading e2fsprogs AFAICS.
Since Luk is on vacation, does anybody else have any ideas about how to
do this?

--
ciao,
Marco

On Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:10:03 +0100
md@Linux.IT (Marco d'Itri) wrote:

> On Feb 07, Luk Claes <luk@debian.org> wrote:
>
> > The whole archive needs to be scanned to see if no functionality of
> > e2fsprogs is used without (build) dependency. Dropping the flag itself
> > is just uploading e2fsprogs AFAICS.
> Since Luk is on vacation, does anybody else have any ideas about how to
> do this?

Unpacking packages, scanning the source for binaries contained in the
relevant package. We have infrastructure to do that kind of thing with
lintian and other tools. Probably the biggest barrier is someone to
actually run the scan and determine what to try and find.

Personally, I'm not that fussed about Essential anymore - Emdebian just
removes the tag from any and every package automatically. No ill effects
have been identified so far. Sometimes I wonder if Debian actually
needs Essential any more for anything particularly useful or
commonplace. Until you try to create a system smaller than a standard
debootstrap, it doesn't seem to matter whether Essential exists or not,
AFAICT. (Once you do try and get smaller, you're largely on your own
anyway and Essential isn't really that helpful in my experience as the
packages you're trying to remove from debootstrap are some of those
tagged as Essential, like perl.) Any package can be removed if you're
careful - a different kernel is trivial with BSD kernels to go into
stable releases, a different libc isn't hard, busybox can replace
coreutils - about the only thing you need to keep is dpkg because
otherwise it's hardly Debian-based anymore. ;-)

--


Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 06:04:16PM +0000, Neil Williams wrote:
> Personally, I'm not that fussed about Essential anymore - Emdebian just
> removes the tag from any and every package automatically. No ill effects
> have been identified so far. Sometimes I wonder if Debian actually
> needs Essential any more for anything particularly useful or
> commonplace.

Then you clearly don't understand the purpose of Essential.

--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org


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Archive: 20100314182508.GB10122@dario.dodds.net">http://lists.debian.org/20100314182508.GB10122@dario.dodds.net

On Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:25:08 -0700
Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 06:04:16PM +0000, Neil Williams wrote:
> > Personally, I'm not that fussed about Essential anymore - Emdebian just
> > removes the tag from any and every package automatically. No ill effects
> > have been identified so far. Sometimes I wonder if Debian actually
> > needs Essential any more for anything particularly useful or
> > commonplace.
>
> Then you clearly don't understand the purpose of Essential.

I understand the theory, I've just never seen the practical purpose of
the current mechanism. Yes, it shortens Depends: lines but if the
dependencies are not listed and the Essential tag is omitted, what
actually goes wrong? It's one thing having a list of packages that can
be omitted from the dependency list but having a tag in the control
file (and Packages file) seems utterly pointless. With a little care,
Essential is irrelevant.

By all means keep a list of Essential packages but that list does not
have to be derived from the package data or in the Packages file or
need a package upload to modify; it could be somewhere in /etc/, making
it easier to modify / ditch.

The lack of the control field appears to have no ill effects, whether a
list exists or not.

Having the principle of Essential does mean that Emdebian can replace
dpkg-divert and update-alternatives with shell scripts without having
to change reverse dependencies but, in practice, it isn't that much of
a gain.

Anyway, the point of my comment was to avoid getting into that
discussion again. I'm happy to ditch Essential when it gets in the way.

--


Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

On 2010-03-14 20:34 +0100, Neil Williams wrote:

> On Sun, 14 Mar 2010 11:25:08 -0700
> Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 06:04:16PM +0000, Neil Williams wrote:
>> > Personally, I'm not that fussed about Essential anymore - Emdebian just
>> > removes the tag from any and every package automatically. No ill effects
>> > have been identified so far. Sometimes I wonder if Debian actually
>> > needs Essential any more for anything particularly useful or
>> > commonplace.
>>
>> Then you clearly don't understand the purpose of Essential.
>
> I understand the theory, I've just never seen the practical purpose of
> the current mechanism. Yes, it shortens Depends: lines but if the
> dependencies are not listed and the Essential tag is omitted, what
> actually goes wrong?

The user removes the package and breaks their system.

Sven



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Archive: 87bpeq3cid.fsf@turtle.gmx.de">http://lists.debian.org/87bpeq3cid.fsf@turtle.gmx.de