Bug#693400: Acknowledgement (please allow multiarch for grub-ieee1275-bin)

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor]

i wrote:
> I think all that's needed to make grub-ieee1275-bin multiarch is to move
> the Depends: powerpc-ibm-utils, powerpc-utils, bc to Recommends: for
> non-powerpc architectures.  Do we actually need bc in there on any
> architecture, since powerpc-ibm-utils itself depends on bc?
> 
> It would also be nice to have grub-install default to --no-nvram on
> non-powerpc architectures, when targetting powerpc-ieee1275, since
> clearly this would be a cross-platform installation of the bootloader.

after sleeping on this, i think the Depends: needs to be a Recommends:
for all architectures -- otherwise pulling in the powerpc variant on a
foreign arch would still pull in the binary deps.

So, given the above, i think the right approach is:

if grub-install believes it needs to update the nvram, it looks at its
architecture, and decides which tools it needs:

 * If it is not a powerpc architecture, it simply doesn't try to update
the nvram, prints "not a powerpc, not updating nvram", and terminates
successfully.

 * If it is an IBM powerpc, it tests for the presence of the tools it
needs from powerpc-ibm-utils.  If they don't exist, it prints "Need
$toolname to update the nvram; not updating; install powerpc-ibm-utils
if you want to update the nvram" and terminates with an error.  If they
are present, it proceeds as normal.

 * if it is a non-IBM powerpc, it does the same sort of test, but for
powerpc-utils.

Does this seem plausible?  Does it make sense that with these changes we
could move those Depends: to Recommends: and make grub-ieee1275-bin a
Multiarch package?

	--dkg

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