>>>>> Brian May writes: BM> If I have got this right:
BM> So instead of of having *releases* for each combination of BM> <release>,<kernel>,<cpu> BM> You could have a *package* depend on any number of factors (as BM> determined important), eg BM> <kernel>,<cpu>,<glibcversion>,<gnomeversion> BM> Therefore, grub would only depend on <cpu>, but a gnome package BM> might depend on all of the above. Exactly. BM> Just a comment: In the source code for each dependancy (eg CPU) BM> you would have a specification, ie something like: BM> - the source code MUST be recompiled. eg for another CPU. BM> - the source code does not have to be recompiled, but still BM> should work. eg for another library that has the same ABI. BM> - the source code is incompatable with this dependancy. eg for BM> kernel specific code. BM> I am not sure what the best way would be to specify this BM> information, I am just saying that I think this information would BM> be required. Here is a possible way of specifying the information: Anything that has a `|' in its dependencies means that there is more than one kind of binary package, so, say the binary packages were different depending on the kernel you had installed: Depends: linux|hurd If they were different also depending on the architecture, you would say: Depends: linux|hurd, hwarch-i386|hwarch-m68k which would leave room for 4 different binary packages. If the package also requires an editor, but it doesn't matter what kind, then it would simply say: Depends: linux|hurd, hwarch-i386|hwarch-m68k, editor which still leaves room for only 4 different binary packages. >> Why should all ports have to release at the same time? Why should >> we not allow different ports to depend on different versions of >> the same package? BM> So, you want to get rid of hamm,slink,potato,etc? How would you BM> keep track of stable vs unstable? I have utterly no idea. First let's change the dpkg technology. The archive organization should come later. Until there is a more elegant solution, we can just have dinstall map certain dependencies into certain locations: binary-i386: linux, hwarch-i386 binary-m68k: linux, hwarch-m68k binary-alpha: linux, hwarch-alpha binary-sparc: linux, hwarch-sparc binary-arm: linux, hwarch-arm binary-hurd-i386: hurd, hwarch-i386 binary-linux-all: linux binary-hurd-all: hurd binary-all: [default] It would be nice to change dinstall so that we can create new distros on the fly, but I think that's asking too much for an initial proposal. Seconders? -- Gordon Matzigkeit <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> //\ I'm a FIG (http://www.fig.org/) Committed to freedom and diversity \// I use GNU (http://www.gnu.org/)
