Control: severity -1 wishlist Control: tags -1 + upstream wontfix Hello Elliott Mitchell.
Thanks for your bug report. On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 02:01:19PM -0800, Elliott Mitchell wrote: > Package: util-linux > Version: 2.20.1-5.3 > > Sorry, I hate to have to report it, but as of 4.2 the x86 (both ia32 and > amd64) Linux kernel still supports the features manipulated by these > commands. I was quite confused about what you where speaking of but it seems you're talking about some commands that was removed from upstream util-linux in ancient history. For example the rdev command: $ git show a3e40c14651fccf18e7954f081e601389baefe3f | head -n 5 commit a3e40c14651fccf18e7954f081e601389baefe3f Author: Karel Zak <[email protected]> Date: Thu May 13 13:58:16 2010 +0200 rdev: remove this deprecated command $ git tag --contains a3e40c14651fccf18e7954f081e601389baefe3f | grep ^v | sort -u | head -n 1 v2.18 Not sure how exactly this applies to Debian, but assuming it does then it would be an issue between old-oldstable and oldstabe which is just too far back for me to personally care very much. > > Until the Linux kernel removes these features, removal of the > commands is quite premature. Which likely will not happen *ever* since the kernel policy is to not remove things unless someone *notices* they've been sitting broken for a long time without anyone reporting it, which will never happen given the userspace tools doesn't exist anymore.... Thus I'm not a fan of your logic here. > I'm cringing at having to report it, but > under the right circumstances they're still handy to have. In those rare cases I'd be willing to bet that just git cloning util-linux, checking out some ancient version and builting that could be done... or if snapshots.debian.org carries old enough versions of the package (and they where ever included in Debian before?) they could be extracted from there. Debian does not have to ship a utility for everything... Other sources of software besides the official archive are allowed. Maybe there are even newer and better ways at utilizing whatever these old tools provided. > Someone good with rants really needs to chew out whomever thought > removing them was a good idea. I doubt ranting will solve anything. If you want this issue fixed you should talk to upstream util-linux project though, not Debian. >From a Debian perspective I'm tagging this wontfix because someone would have to consider being the upstream of these tools before they get packaged. Maybe you want to start a "old-tools" project (or whatever name you find suitable) containing the sources for these tools and maintain them yourself? If so, just file a RFP bug against "wnpp" once the project is live. > > My apologies at the long delay in bringing up the issue, but problems > happen. My apologies for not meeting your request, but I hope you understand that there's a limit to how far my volunteer effort goes around here... I hope you find a way to work around your issues. Regards, Andreas Henriksson
