makedev is now priority extra

[Bdale Garbee]

Bug #545309 causes me to realize that the recent lowering of priority
for makedev to 'extra' motivates a review and update of policy section
10.6.

Given udev, the majority of Debian systems in the future are unlikely to
have makedev installed at all.  There may be enough usage cases for
static devices to motivate keeping it around at priority extra instead
of requesting it be removed entirely, but it no longer seems appropriate
for policy to mandate the use of MAKEDEV.

Also, note that all packages above priority extra that depend on makedev
are now buggy with respect to policy section 2.5.

Bdale



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[Manoj Srivastava]

On Wed, Sep 16 2009, Bdale Garbee wrote:

> Bug #545309 causes me to realize that the recent lowering of priority
> for makedev to 'extra' motivates a review and update of policy section
> 10.6.

> Given udev, the majority of Debian systems in the future are unlikely to
> have makedev installed at all.

        Actually, udev, while nice, is optional, and I think I have read
 reports of admins opting _not_ to have udev on the system, so in some
 cases one may have systems without udev and with MAKEDEV. Policy should
 try to support this, if we can.

> There may be enough usage cases for static devices to motivate keeping
> it around at priority extra instead of requesting it be removed
> entirely, but it no longer seems appropriate for policy to mandate the
> use of MAKEDEV.

        Well, if you modify that statement to unconditionally call
 MAKEDEV, I will agree with you. Would it be sufficient if policy makes
 calling MAKEDEV conditional on the existence of /sbin/MAKEDEV?

> Also, note that all packages above priority extra that depend on makedev
> are now buggy with respect to policy section 2.5.

        Right. But this is a different issue.

        manoj
--
The Banana Principle: Heuristic devices don't tell you when to
stop. --anonymous
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@...> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>  
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[Luk Claes]

Manoj Srivastava wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 16 2009, Bdale Garbee wrote:
>
>> Bug #545309 causes me to realize that the recent lowering of priority
>> for makedev to 'extra' motivates a review and update of policy section
>> 10.6.
>
>> Given udev, the majority of Debian systems in the future are unlikely to
>> have makedev installed at all.
>
>         Actually, udev, while nice, is optional, and I think I have read
>  reports of admins opting _not_ to have udev on the system, so in some
>  cases one may have systems without udev and with MAKEDEV. Policy should
>  try to support this, if we can.

It's only optional in theory as if you don't use it you're totally on
your own.

Cheers

Luk


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[Manoj Srivastava]

On Mon, Oct 05 2009, Luk Claes wrote:

> Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> On Wed, Sep 16 2009, Bdale Garbee wrote:
>>
>>> Bug #545309 causes me to realize that the recent lowering of priority
>>> for makedev to 'extra' motivates a review and update of policy section
>>> 10.6.
>>
>>> Given udev, the majority of Debian systems in the future are unlikely to
>>> have makedev installed at all.
>>
>>         Actually, udev, while nice, is optional, and I think I have read
>>  reports of admins opting _not_ to have udev on the system, so in some
>>  cases one may have systems without udev and with MAKEDEV. Policy should
>>  try to support this, if we can.
>
> It's only optional in theory as if you don't use it you're totally on
> your own.

        Hmm? If we are taking that stance, why is udev still an optional
 package?  How is the end user to know that removing an optional package
 would violate their warranty?

        manoj
--
A leader is best when people barely know he exists ... When his work is
done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, "We did this ourselves."  --
Lao-Tse
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@...> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>  
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B  924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C


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[Wouter Verhelst]

On Mon, Oct 05, 2009 at 08:11:57AM +0200, Luk Claes wrote:
> Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> >         Actually, udev, while nice, is optional, and I think I have read
> >  reports of admins opting _not_ to have udev on the system, so in some
> >  cases one may have systems without udev and with MAKEDEV. Policy should
> >  try to support this, if we can.
>
> It's only optional in theory as if you don't use it you're totally on
> your own.

Er, what do you base that statement on?

--
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works because there's a guard with a large gun making sure no one is
trying to fool the system.
  http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/biometrics.html


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[Luk Claes]

Wouter Verhelst wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 05, 2009 at 08:11:57AM +0200, Luk Claes wrote:
>> Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>>>         Actually, udev, while nice, is optional, and I think I have read
>>>  reports of admins opting _not_ to have udev on the system, so in some
>>>  cases one may have systems without udev and with MAKEDEV. Policy should
>>>  try to support this, if we can.
>> It's only optional in theory as if you don't use it you're totally on
>> your own.
>
> Er, what do you base that statement on?

On the observation that more and more key components rely on udev and
that we won't special case for the lack of it unless that's trivial to do.

Cheers

Luk


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