[Pkg-xen-devel] Re: [Pkg-xen-changes] r13 - trunk/debian

[Guido Trotter]

On Fri, Feb 17, 2006 at 08:11:30PM +0100, Ralph Passgang wrote:

Hi,

> That's funny, because the name "linux-xen0-2.6" was more or less a free 
> choosen name by myself without any of those thinks in mind. I even never 
> noticed that the actual kernel package "provides" this already
> 
> In fact my "linux-xen0-2.6" package just provides the actual kernel .deb 
> (called linux-xen0-2.6.12.6-xen_tha1_<arch>.deb on sid/etch and 
> kernel-xen0-2.6.12.6-xen_tha1_<arch>.deb on sarge) and were only some kind of 
> container package, because in needed some kind of source package for my 
> autobuilder system to build a kernel package like a normal debian source 
> package. as I said already, my kernel packages are more or less just a big 
> hack and not for an offical debian release.
> 

Then your package is named linux-xen0-2.6.12.6-xen on sid and
kernel-xen0-2.6.12.6-xen on sarge... The suggestion was satisfied because those
packages provided that one!

Anyway we've already seen that at least for now we cannot upload kernels to the
debian archive... 

> But even if every make-kpkg kernel provides a linux-xen0-2.6 meta-package, 
> does it really help the user?
> 
> If the user hasn't compiled a kernel by himself then he will not find the 
> suggested package in the offical debian archive (and might report that as bug 
> or whatever) and if he has already compiled a kernel on his own, then he 
> doesn't need any further suggestions. It only will confuse users, won't it?
> 

Well, he might get it from some other source, put it in his own private archive
and then the suggestion will be satisfied...  I think we should leave it like it
was! ;) 

> I think we should only suggest packages that are offical debian packages and 
> not what the user can build on his own or what might be available on external 
> archives. Imho we should only add these suggestion again when we are having a 
> way to provide kernel images with security support, but that might get the 
> hard (as discussed in other threads already).
> 

By policy a recommends not present in the archive is a bug, while a suggests is not!
So for now a suggests would be fine... When we will be able to provide the
kernel through official debian we may change that to recommends, if we want...

Guido