* Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [031203 20:12]: > Before we make such a push, we should at least ensure that it > is something we really want to do. I think locally generated > checksums are a better solution.
I don't think so. md5-calculation it not the fastest thing (especially on non-i386 it often feels like downloading and installing together needs less time than the md5sum-verification. So this should be switched off, but then it will be missing when one needs them. Not having some host-specific automatism makes it also much easier to verify them. A kernel together with some mount-md5sum-cruft-debsums utility may fit together with the md5sums of the .md5sums files on a floppy. If those files may look different, one may need to include those files as well. (And extracting them from some package pool is also more complicated). Its also a warm feeling to run debsums to see the broken memory chip one just replaced with a working one has not caused any bit-changes in the installed files. If the checksums were created at the same system, one has to get them from somewhere else, so there is little sense in having them generated at all. Hochachtungsvoll, Bernhard R. Link -- Sendmail is like emacs: A nice operating system, but missing an editor and a MTA.