> On Wednesday 25 August 2010 11:21:41 Hector Oron wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>>> Hector wants to make everything into debian packages. Needs discussion as
>>> it seems overly complex to me but I may be being insufficiently radical.
>>
>> I do not believe it is so complex, as `u-boot' is already a Debian
>> package but it might need some work (scary that you can upgrade uboot
>> from `apt'), but it might need a design rethink from Debian point of
>> view. Marek is also interested on this.
>>
>> For kernel, it is just a one liner to get a binary Debian package
>> (using `kernel-package').
>>
>> For the rest of userland, emdebian is already packaged into debs :)
>
> Don't deb packages and the menuconfig mechanism do very different things for
> very different purposes?
>
> I have most likely misunderstood, but I thought the idea with the menuconfig
> etc was to provide a lightweight mechanism for tinkering (eg, in my case
> switching in various YAFFS' versions and trying them out). From my limited
> experience it would seem ponderous to do this via packages, but that's likely
> because I don't understand the finer points of your proposal.
>
There seem to use two use cases. Make and distribute a distro (the original 
model) and tinker (menuconfig inspiration).

Making a distribution based on raw binaries could include packaged binaries 
too whether deb or rpm or whatever. Spitting out debs could be a tinker 
option selected in menuconfig too of course but I would resist only making 
packaged binaries. I use the bootldr prompt with "load kernel" or "yaffs 
write zImage" and wouldn't want to unpack a package to get at the binaries.

> deb packages are surely more suited to distributing packages. Or are you
> suggesting something that builds packages as part of the build machinery ie.
> something like openembedded/bitbake?
>
>> From my persective as mainly a customer, rather than the creator, of debian
> packages (using Ubuntu), packages are a great way to keep a set of software
> up to date via apt-get etc, but they can be an annoyance if you want to do
> something a bit different or fiddle.
>
> -- Charles