[arch-dev-public] The core of Arch Linux - repo reorganization

[Thomas Bächler]

Pierre Schmitz schrieb:
> Hi all,
> 
> reading the last dev meeting log I realized that we need a clean concept to 
> organize our package repositories.
> 
> 
> The problem:
> 
> [...]
> 
> 
> The solution:
> 
> Imho the only solution is to drop those repos and set up new ones with a clear 
> definition what should be included. This is only a fist proposal. A concrete 
> package list has to be worked out later.
> 
> [core]
> [extra]
> [non-free]
> [testing] and [unstable] are special and imho they don`t need further 
> discussion. ;-) 
> 

First of all (as already stated in the meeting), I would support such a
scheme.

> 
> Step by step:
> 
> 1) decide which packages should be in the [core] repo 
>    (check dependencies etc.)

That is sort of decided by the scheme you proposed. Our current base
category, openssh and a new "drivers" category with all drivers that are
1) freely distributable and 2) necessary to bring networking up and
running. And we may have to add some filesystem tools.

In the proposed scheme, cored shouldn't be much more. A "core" cd would
then replace our base installation cd.

> 2) move everything else into extra
> 3) cleanup extra; move packages into non-free, community or even aur

Agreed. Depending on usage, importance and man-power decisions, things
should be either in extra or community. Note that the distinction
between extra and community is made obvious by the separation of the dev
group and the tu group. Packages maintained by TUs go to community,
packages maintained by devs to extra.

The core+extra repos would make an archlinux dvd, which could replace
our current "full" iso. It could be made available to offline users, so
archlinux would be more offline/dialup friendly - we'd have to keep up
our regular snapshots though.

> 4) make sure there are no broken dependencies (including makedepends). It
>    should look like this:
> 	[core] <- [extra] 
> 	  ^----------^----[non-free]
> 	  ^----------^----[unstable]
> 	  ^----------^----[community]

Note that this cannot always be strict with makedepends. For example,
mplayer (extra) would have a non-free makedepend (codecs). But it should
be kept strict for depends.

> Ok this is only a first proof of concept and a lot of work has to be done; bu 
> what do you think of this idea?

I was one of the people pushing this scheme on the meeting. My main
reason was that there would be a clean definition of our repositories,
while there is no such thing for current and extra right now. The idea
has my support.


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 252 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/attachments/20070711/b41f7762/attachment.pgp>