Hi,
ext Aniello Del Sorbo wrote:
Marius Gedminas wrote:
On Mon, Feb 12, 2007 at 08:13:47PM +0000, Neil MacLeod wrote:
Richard Pickler wrote:
The second time, I was installing some packages I built myself, and
it crashed, which I could not recover from. (this one I'll take the
blame for).
Why should you take the blame? This is a consumer oriented device and
software installation is promoted as a user feature - it should not
brick the device, period!
I'm pretty sure you can install apps from the tableteer certified
repository without bricking the device.
It's impossible to prevent packages from other repositories from doing
so. Package installation can runs arbitrary scripts as root, and you
can't prevent root from destroying a Linux system. (Well, maybe if you
lock it down with capabilities/SELinux/something else, but it's hard to
do so without making unable to do anything useful.)
Why?
On the tablet you just install apps. Why should the installer need to be
root to do so?
A properly configured device (as it should have been) should NEVER ask
for root permissions.
dpkg runs as root and it installs the packages under root rights.
Badly done package can therefore very easily[1] make the device
go into reboot-loop.
[1] For example by filling the disk in postinst script and not cleaning
it up, overwriting or removing some required system file etc.
All programs just copy their own executables and write their own
configuration in a file. It can be made in a user writable directory
(perhaps in the memory card too [see below]).
Same holds for libraries.
I can think of very few .debs (if any) that need to be installed by root
on a tablet.
Speaking about installing apps on the MMC, it would be very easy too.
I am sure the Maemo Team was faced with such an option and they had to
choose between partitioning the SD/MMC (as VFAT can cause a few issues
with apps execution, and the apps themselves should deal with execution
and configuration files in an unusual path [many do]) or giving away
with this option. The chose the latter.
May be they just postponed it as they would have needed to deal with
some stuff, for example what to do if you remove/install an SD (the menu
should catch the D-BUS event and remove the external apps from the list
and should add them back when the card is inserted and stuff like that).
But I am sure it would be perfectly feasible and very useful too (the
dpkg utility allows it).
- Eero
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