Hi there, I'm starting to investigate making Debian packages of something I wrote -- a proxy firewall kit[0].
I have so far assembled a single package containing all of the binaries and some documentation[1]. dpkg-deb says Installed-Size: 352 so it's not worryingly large. However, it contains a bunch of largely orthogonal components: * some application proxies + ftp + pop-3 + http (not finished) + smtp (not finished) * some daemons + an identd + an httpd * some tools + packet filter log parsing tools + something more generally useful (like "since") * some bits (which are useless without one of the daemons or proxies) The documentation isn't huge (though it's not included in the above Installed-Size number yet), but the few files discuss pretty much everything together. Debian (I'm fairly new to it, but have been using Linux for a long while, and am quite comfortable which making RPMs) seems to have a fairly granular approach to packaging. So I'm tempted to re-jig my package into a lot of separate packages: + fk-proxies + fk-identd + fk-httpd + fk-logfilters + tailnew (see "like \"since\"") + fk-authslave (recommends fk-proxies|fk-identd|fk-httpd) + fk-doc (recommends as above) "tailnew" can also build with either gdbm or tdb. The latter is technically superior, but the former seems more common. Debian packages are available for both, of course. The other packages might also recommend fk-doc. All packages might be wise to recommend that the same versions of all related pacakges. With this all written down, the answer to "Is this excessively granular?" seems obvious. However, consider that the target audience may well appreciate not having to install proxies the she won't use. So, should I split my package (also, remembering that I could do this upstream too if it seemed wise) or should it stay as a single package? Answers on a postcard please (or this mailing list will do :-) Thanks, Matthew [0] http://hairy.beasts.org/fk/ [1] I'm still undecided on trying to become a Debian maintainer or trying to foist it onto someone else, but that's question for another time. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
