[LinuxBIOS] LinuxBIOS Debian package.

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Uwe Hermann <uwe at hermann-uwe.de> [060724 17:39]:
> being a Debian developer I wondered wether it would make sense to create
> one or more Debian packages for LinuxBIOS. It seems there are no
> packages available at the moment - is this correct?

right.

> I'm not sure it makes sense to have the src/* and targets/* stuff
> packaged (maybe it does), but some things would be nice, I guess.
> 
> For example (quick draft):
> 
> linuxbios - metapackage which draws in all/most other packages

ie. the other two?

> linuxbios-doc - documentation
> linuxbios-utils - standalone utilities, e.g. romcc, flashrom, ...
 
romcc is recompiled each time an image is built (which takes a lot less
time than running romcc)

> Maybe also something like linuxbios-src which contains the rest, and
> which can be used to compile images(?)

I would start out with "linuxbios-utils" as the only package and
pack flashrom, the lxbios tool (see fm). If you want to make it more
generic, you could call it firmware-utils or bios-utils and pack 
openbios' toke and detok with it.

> Anyways, let me know if that makes sense or whether there are
> problems (e.g. if you'd HAVE TO recompile romcc/flashrom/whatever every
> time on your own, it doesn't make sense to package it)...
 
The build process would have to be changed to use a prebuilt romcc, and
I don't think this makes too much sense, as everything works fine as is,
and there's no benefit to doing so.

Also, I would not swamp the repository with a number of packages just
for the sake of doing so (even though this is commonly accepted in debian
development) but look at target users of such a package and their
requirements. Having a flash utility like flashrom integrated definitely 
makes sense. Packing source code in packages in my opinion does not (ok,
the kernel may for some reason be an exception here)

Just my 2ct. We're happy about anything that improves the user range of
LinuxBIOS of course.

Stefan

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