Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Eric Sandall <eric AT sandall.us>]

Quoting Hamish Greig <hgreig AT bigpond.net.au>:
> 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.

Well, people would probably like to compile those two packages eventually, so 
I
say leave it in then.

> ...[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

Then I say it should stay as they'll be using /some/ filesystem, and only one 
of
our choices (reiserfs) doesn't seem to need e2fsprogs.

> ...[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.

Then I'd say leave it in as well.
 
> > > 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.

It's small enough that I'd say leave it in.
 
> ...[snip]...
> > > netkit-ping:0.17 <- (arguable)
> >
> > Same as netconf, I'd say.
> 
> yes, same

Same again. ;)

> ..[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. 

True, plus (most) people have an extra machine to look things up at, so leave
those off, I'd say.

-sandalle

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Eric Sandall                     |  Source Mage GNU/Linux Developer
eric AT sandall.us                  |  http://www.sourcemage.org/
http://eric.sandall.us/          |  SysAdmin @ Inst. Shock Physics @ WSU
http://counter.li.org/  #196285  |  http://www.shock.wsu.edu/

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