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  • From: Hamish Greig <hgreig AT bigpond.net.au>
  • To: sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] requests for spells on ISO
  • Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2004 14:12:45 +1000

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On Thu, 1 Apr 2004 13:23, Eric Sandall wrote:
> > perl:5.8.3 <- (arguable)
>
> Does anything needed on the ISO require perl?
...[snip]
> the kernel (linux) uses perl for some of it's parsing in makefiles. not
> sure what glibc uses it for, but those are the only two "required" packages
> I see that depend on perl (besides basesystem, but that's just a
> meta-spell).

nothing /uses/ perl but it is needed to compile glibc or a kernel. if it was
moved out of "must have" it would still be installed for cast linux. So,
thinking everyone would end up with it installed anyway, I left it in "must
have" list.
I don't mind where it is, there will be a cache of it available, if people
want it out of the default list that is fine.

...[snip]...
> > e2fsprogs:1.35 <- (arguable)
>
> Isn't thsi one of those optionals that only get installed if they're using
> ext2/3?

basesystem depends on it and it is currently sustained. It is also the native
filesystem, xfsprogs and jfsutils depends on it.
My recent installer code has no idea what is in basesystem or what is
sustained (or even what either term means) , but I have used both as a guide
for what should be "must have".
discuss it and let me know if it should only be installed if ext2 or ext3 are
used in the fstab

...[snip]...

> > module-init-tools:3.0 <- (arguable)
>
> Isn't this needed to load/unload modules?
>

only if you build a kernel with modules, or copy the supplied kernel over.
if it was removed from "must have" a check would have to be done to make sure
the user hadn't installed a modular kernel, and overrule their bad decision
if necessary.

> > netconf:1.3 <- (arguable)
>
> Would this be optional if the chose to start their network right then (say
> for an nfs install)?

netconf exists in the iso_root, the installer no longer chroot's to call
netconf and I have added a query to start the network interface immediately
after it is configured.
I still think it is a good idea to install it so users can remanipulate their
interfaces easily after installation (and it is a single file) but I know
some purists want a bare minimum, rock-bottom, no frills install, and they
might view netconf as a frill.

...[snip]...
> > netkit-ping:0.17 <- (arguable)
>
> Same as netconf, I'd say.

yes, same

..[snip]...
> > man-pages:1.66
>
> I think we may want the man pages installed, in case someone needs to look
> up some syntax right away. And by "optional" you mean that they may or may
> not be included on the ISO root, or that the user has an option to install
> them onto the system from the ISO?

I wasn't going to include man or man pages in the iso_root , uncompressed
man-pages is 18 MB, and even gzipped they are still 13MB. I had thought about
mount --bind (ing) the installed ${TARGET}/usr/share/man dir to the
iso_root, but by the time the man-pages are installed and available the
install is almost over. So there seems little point.
There are similar size issues with info files too.
I just checked, and the fresh install with all man pages and info files
(including man-pages spell) when gzipped are 29 MB
As always the majority's wishes should be respected, so if people want to
sacrifice the ISO's size for documentation then let me know.

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