On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 11:19 -0400, Sam Hartman wrote:
> Folks, there was a longish discussion on IRC starting about an hour > ago about dash and bash. These discussions are extremely long standing :) The move away from bash has been aimed at long before I vanished from the project in 2004. I'm really upset that 5 years are not enough to accomplish the move. > I agree we want to move the default /bin/sh to /bin/dash. > However I'm failing to understand why we want dash to be essential. > If I'm not using dash as my /bin/sh why do I need it? So you are complaining about a small package (installed size 224) becoming essential while forcing the embedded ppl to work around a monster (installed size 1236); numbers taken from my Ubuntu laptop where both are essential, I hope only for a limited period of time. Although preferring CLI over GUI I don't use both of them, I prefer zsh for my daily work but my #!/bin/sh scripts are always posixly correct. > If the answer is that we really do want it everywhere independent of > what /bin/sh is, that's fine. However, that's not obvious to me. As long as /bin/sh refuses extensions to posix I agree with you, but bashism has been a cuss word for years before 2004. > So, a proposal for doing a switch with dash not essential. > 1) all /bin/sh shells know about each other. > 2) The prerm script for a /bin/sh shell finds another /bin/sh shell > and updates the symlink if the current /bin/sh link is the one being > removed. > 3) The postinst for a /bin/sh shell can update the link if it > decides that the installed shell would make a better /bin/sh > 4) There is a package `the-shell ' that is essential and pre-depends > on one of the /bin/sh shells. Maybe "posixly-correct-shell" would be a better name. Summing up you suggest making a virtual package - however it's called - essential. While I think I grok your intentions, I doubt dpkg will follow, please read carefully: http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-binary.html#s3.8 > Variations: > 1) You could have a registration mechanism. My assumption is the > set is small enough static is good > 2) I assume that package operations cannot take place between > calling the prerm script and actually removing the package. If that > is false, you could make sure that you are changing the link to a > configured shell > I really don't mind if we go forward with the current proposal. > However, I think I and a lot of other people would appreciate clarity, > so far not expressed, about why dash needs to be essential. See debian-policy cited above. looking-forward-for-posixly-correct-/bin/sh-ly yours Siggy -- Please don't Cc: me when replying, I might not see either copy. bsb-at-psycho-dot-informationsanarchistik-dot-de or: bsb-at-psycho-dot-i21k-dot-de O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org
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