[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       debian-devel
Subject:    Re: Status of deb(5) format support in Debian
From:       David Kalnischkies <kalnischkies () gmail ! com>
Date:       2013-07-31 20:16:02
Message-ID: CAAZ6_fAaY2_L+mfbTtUU2T=WgL4wHWBYmh1oCJUfyEztBEk5Kw () mail ! gmail ! com
[Download RAW message or body]

On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 6:56 PM, Stefano Zacchiroli <zack@debian.org> wrote=
:
> On Wed, Jul 31, 2013 at 06:24:32PM +0200, Guillem Jover wrote:
>> Due to bug 718295, and in preparation to add non-gzip compression
>> support for control.tar, I've tried to get an accurate view of the
>> current deb(5) format support in software present in Debian. The
>> resulting table looks pretty bad:
>>
>>    <https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/DebSupport>
>
> So, about the following passage on that page:
>
>> The current support seems quite bleak, and part of the blame goes to
>> dpkg for not providing better interfaces for others to use, hopefully
>> that will be remedied soon.
>
> Can you expand on the planned remedy and in how "soon" it might arrive?

That I would be interested in as well.

APT (or better: libapt-inst) is containing this tar stuff for two reasons:
1) apt-extracttemplates =96 which is a hack/layer violation as that is real=
ly
   something a dpkg-* (or debconf) tool should do but its still here=85
   [Its on the roadmap for dpkg since at least 1.15.X (according to wiki).]
2) apt-ftparchive =96 used to generate Contents files (which seem to be
   slightly different from the ones dak is generating for all the cool kids=
).

So, 2) we can ignore for now, 1) would be nice to fix as basically everyone
has this one installed (and hence everyone has 2) installed), but "maybe" I
will leave that bugreport open for a while just to see what happens=85


I know that everyone dreams about a stable API for a library, but I believe
that even an unstable library at this point is way better than the status
quo of having other layers like libapt (which is a proof that even if being
 unstable is a pain, the alternative would be worse =96 and that's a freaki=
ng
 C++ "library" =85) providing makeshift replacements.

There are e.g. a bunch of dpkg-style version-comparison implementations in
Debian which should really just be a single one under the control of dpkg a=
nd
that might be "just" ~5 because libapt includes one, so it could be misused
by others (anyone remember the kernel depending on libapt-pkg-perl?).


Best regards

David Kalnischkies

P.S.: Could the table be enhanced with a description for the table headers?
I have no idea what an "ar slash" might be, and not really what LFS means
as the format has no support for >10 character filesizes as far as I know.


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/CAAZ6_fAaY2_L+mfbTtUU2T=WgL4wHWBYmh1oCJUfyEztBEk5Kw@mail.gmail.com

[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]