[arch-dev-public] Proposal: minimal base system

[Gaetan Bisson]

Bruno,

We all seem to agree that [base] plays no satisfactory role in its
current state, so I think Allan definitely has a point: let us first
turn [base] into something useful, and only then wonder if we need
something more.


[2019-02-05 14:38:26 +0100] Bruno Pagani via arch-dev-public:
> Le 05/02/2019 à 12:54, Allan McRae a écrit :
> > If someone knows they want to set up logical volumes and drive
> > encryption, then they know enough to install lvm and cryptsetup.  Same
> > with jfsutils, xfsutils.   So I don't think they should be in the base
> > group (e.g. I would not call jfsutils a standard tool).
> 
> Maybe. As I said in my answer to Bartłomiej, I don’t know if beginners
> know enough things to install what they need beyond the minimum system,
> or if they just read the wiki about doing this or that, which might
> assume they have the current base group installed.

Then the wiki should just be updated to say: "first, install jfsutils."
It's up to the wiki to document the project, not up to the project to
follow the wiki's rule.

> > If we remove the excess from base, then we are down to a very small
> > difference between that and archlinux-system.  Only e2fsprogs, man, and
> > an editor different?
> >
> > So I see the proposed archlinux-system group being essentially what base
> > should be.
> 
> That is because you see base as the minimal system.

> So I’ll turn this
> differently: do you have objections against having, outside of the
> minimal meta-package described in our proposal, a packages group of
> “relatively standard” tools, that is purposed at beginner wanting to
> have only one simple pacstrap command to issue in order to get started?

Yes because those two things seem the same to me. Or at any rate their
difference is too small to be worth the distinction. Perhaps I'm not
understanding what exact roles you envision for [base] and [minimal-
system]; it would help to know exactly what packages you would put in
the former and not the latter. Allan suggested e2fsprogs, man, and vim.
We can certainly agree that three is too few to warrant creating two
distinct groups.

Cheers.

-- 
Gaetan
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