Metapackages for linux-restricted-modules

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Wed, Sep 15, 2004 at 09:21:31AM +1000, Herbert Xu wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 14, 2004 at 11:42:31AM -0700, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> >
> > However, this raises the question of how to keep them in sync with the
> > ones built by linux-source, so that the "default version" of everything
> > matches up.  e.g., if I install linux-image-2.6 and
> > linux-restricted-modules-2.6, they should be the same version and
> > everything should work.
> 
> I don't think you need to keep them in sync.  The restricted module
> packages depend on the corresponding linux-image packages.  So if you are
> going to install the restricted meta package, you don't need the
> linux-image meta package at all.

My concern is with this scenario:

- I install linux-image-2.6-386, which installs linux-image-2.6.8.1-2-386
- I install linux-restricted-modules-2.6-386, which installs
  linux-restricted-modules-2.6.8.1-2-386
- linux-image-2.6.8.1-2-386 is superseded by linux-image-2.6.8.1-3-386
- My Atheros driver suddenly disappears

So while linux-restricted-modules depends on the corresponding kernel image,
that kernel image is no longer the default one depended upon by the
linux-image metapackage, nor is it the default one which is booted on my
system by grub.

Whereas, if the metapackages are all built by the same source package, they
cannot fall out of sync this way.

> Having said, I certainly have no objections against building all meta
> packages from a separate source package.  BTW, does warty have a similar
> requirement to Debian where packages in main cannot depend on those
> outside of main?

I think it is probably sensible for us to have a similar requirement, but
since our default installation provides both main and restricted, we can
perhaps be more relaxed with it.

Of course, there is no reason why a source package in main could not build a
metapackage with Section: restricted.

-- 
 - mdz