Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Reducing the size of the system package set

[Mike Frysinger]

On Wednesday 09 January 2008, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-01-09 at 15:51 -0500, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> > > Anyway, as having a complete dependency tree is almost impossible
> > > because of that, I have an alternative proposal: reducing the size of
> > > the system package set.  Right now system contains stuff like ncurses,
> > > readline, zlib, autoconf, automake and m4, perl, gnuconfig, and so
> > > on. Those are packages that certainly would be part of any base Gentoo
> > > system, but are those actual part of the system set of packages? I
> > > sincerely doubt it.
> >
> > for ncurses/readline, they certainly are part of the system set.  that
> > doesnt mean they should not show up in depend strings, it just means they
> > are system packages that every Gentoo system should have installed.
>
> Well, one solution for some of this would be to move said things to a
> "higher" level profile.  Rather than have them all in base/packages,
> move some to default-linux/packages (or even further down, if
> appropriate).  When the stages get built against these profiles, we
> would end up with the complete "system" set, but other profiles
> inheriting from the lower profiles like base won't have to negate
> things.

i dont think Diego's goal is completely BSD driven ... so moving them from 
say "base" to "default-linux" doesnt quite help.  they're stuck in this gray 
middle ground.

> > i have no problem with shunting the rest.  the only thing you need to
> > keep in mind is that if we do move all of these things to build-only
> > depend (which they are logically), then people who like to depclean their
> > system would constantly be removing/adding them.
>
> Well, unless they were added to another profile.  I think the main
> reason for Diego's request is for non-Linux non-default profiles that
> inherit from base.

for these build-only deps, it isnt a Linux problem.  it's a "any system that 
compiles thing from source" problem.  so non-Linux systems would be just as 
affected.

> > not really.  the system package set is what went into releases and we
> > wanted all of these things in our stage tarballs.  it is nigh impossible
> > to emerge anything on a Gentoo system without any of these packages, so
> > forcing them all by default didnt cause any problems.
>
> Exactly.  I just think that we can still accomplish what Diego is asking
> by shifting where things get added to "system" in the profiles.  The
> end-result would be the same (for default Linux installs) but everybody
> else would have a cleaner common base from which to start.

sure, i'm not arguing for the status quo.  but i'm not also not arguing for 
stripping them all (which would make Diego happy i imagine).  i wonder if the 
profiles frags we talked about a while ago is the only real solution and 
shuffling packages around in the meantime is only a temporary (and fragile) 
workaround.

> > i'd say quite the opposite ... requiring perl in system blows.  it's
> > there for two reasons: autotools and openssl.  but both are build time
> > requirements only.
>
> Indeed.  We ended up having to get perl into the stage1 because of
> exactly these problems.  It sucks.  I'd love to be able to remove perl
> (and anything else not necessarily required) out of the base system set.
> If they're required in other profiles, they should be added in said
> profiles.

i often debate simply chucking the perl build requirements of openssl in favor 
of autoconf ... maybe i'll set up a git tree on Gentoo's git for this ... i 
think that'd solve the "perl required in stages" issue ?

> > > So there are more things that were brought to my attention, like ssh,
> > > flex, bison, e2fsprogs, and so on. We should probably look into what to
> > > keep, rather than what to remove.
> >
> > flex/bison are in the exact same boat as autotools.  dont know why you
> > separated them out.  openssh and e2fsprogs are part of the system set
> > because every Gentoo system out there should have them installed.  if you
> > dont like it, feel free to tweak your files locally, but to attempt to
> > account for a few people at the detriment of 99.9% of the people out
> > there makes no sense at all.
>
> Well, openssh has always been questionable.  Sure, *I* think it should
> be on any Gentoo system I'd want to touch, but it really isn't necessary
> for a lot of people.  Moving this to, say, the "server" profiles only
> would be acceptable to me, but then again, so is leaving it how it is
> now.

i'd argue pretty vehemently against removing openssh from any default official 
Gentoo install.  ssh is defacto standard for loginning into any other 
machines.  it should be on all Gentoo desktops/severs/etc...  
specialized/embedded/whatever are certainly free to cull openssh (and doing 
so is actually beyond trivial).  whether we express this requirement in base/ 
or frags or something is certainly open for discussion, but i believe 
removing it from a stage3 in any of our standard releases is a huge 
disservice to everyone.
-mike