PackageSelection
PackageSelection
Status
Created: Date(2005-04-23T09:24:13Z) by MattZimmermanBR
Priority: MediumPriorityBR
People: MichaelVogtLead, ColinWatsonSecondBR
Contributors: MattZimmermanBR
Interested: MattZimmermanBR
Status: BrainDump, UduBof, DistroSpecificationBR
Packages: BR
Depends: BR
UduSessions: 1, 4, 8, etc BR
Introduction
Improve package selection mechanisms in Ubuntu to improve flexibility and maintainability.
This is NOT about choosing which packages to install, ship or support, but about the technical mechanisms used to implement these choices.
Rationale
Scope and Use Cases
- Avoid hardcoding so many dependencies in debootstrap
- Consider alternatives and improvements to the existing metapackage mechanism
- Make it trivial to track additions and removals of packages from the standard package sets
- Ensure smooth upgrades of systems based on the standard package sets
- Allow users to express preferences about tracking changes
Implementation Plan
We should split the current "base" seed into "base" and "standard" seeds. The following packages should move from "base" to "standard":
- lvm2
- evms
- evms-ncurses
- mdadm
- parted
- dmsetup
- aptitude
- at
- cpio
- cron
- ed
- fdutils
- file
- hdparm
- info
- logrotate
- man-db
- manpages
- mime-support
- nano
- psmisc
- sysklogd
- time
- bind9-host
- dnsutils
- ftp
- iptables
- mutt
- telnet
- ppp
- pppconfig
- pppoeconf
- ntp
- openssh-client
- rsync
- w3m
- wget
- dmidecode
- lshw
- lsof
- ltrace
- iputils-arping
- iputils-tracepath
- mtr-tiny
- tcpdump
- reportbug
- popularity-contest
The following packages are being considered for a move from base to standard, but are less clear:
- sudo # used by the installer for /etc/sudoers
- locales # big, but important for l10n
- vim # dependency on libgpmg1 could be removed
- strace # terribly useful
- ethtool
- mii-diag
The following packages should be removed by base entirely, because they will be pulled in by dependencies as appropriate:
- debconf
- gettext-base
- initrd-tools
- makedev
The following packages should be moved from base to supported:
- netkit-inetd
mailx (pending MailRoadmap)
postfix (pending MailRoadmap)
postfix-tls (pending MailRoadmap)
Data Preservation and Migration
Packages Affected
User Interface Requirements
Outstanding Issues
UDU BOF Agenda
- Simplifying debootstrap maintenance
- Install a minimal base system, install Ubuntu's "base" on top of it?
- Resolve dependencies in debootstrap? (cdebootstrap?) Debian #225947 will probaly help us here.
- Tracking package selections
- Review issues with the current metapackage approach
- Users want to be able remove some packages, and continue to participate in other transitions
- Consider solutions
- Recommends
- Tasks
- Other alternatives
- Review issues with the current metapackage approach
- Is there a demand for "expansion packs" similar to Debian tasks?
- Generic server
- Development - what does it mean?
- gcc, g++, libc-dev, make, dpkg-dev (build-essential)
- Be able to build any source package included in the base system (build-essential + build-deps of base)
- An approximate greatest common factor for building software from source tarballs (build-essential + some subset of -dev packages + autotools)
- Be able to build any source package included in the selected install (build-essential + build-deps of base/desktop/server/etc.)
- Some combination of the above
- Web server
- Apache
- PHP
- Selection of modules for each (db, auth, mod_{perl,python} ?)
UDU Pre-Work
Review and summarize [https://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=4896 Bug#4896] and duplicates
- Prepare draft package lists for tasks (review Debian tasks, Fedora comps.xml)