DLoop comments

[Phillip Susi]

Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> It sounds simple until you consider things like conffiles, diversions,
> Replaces, and other features of the packaging system beyond unpacking files.
> I honestly believe that the complexity of this solution outweighs its value
> in comparison to the alternatives, but you're welcome to attempt it.  You
> might consider looking at dpkg-repack as an example of prior art in this
> area.
> 

Those features are what makes a reinstall from the .deb desirable over a 
simple cp, and those things would be left in the .deb to function 
normally.  The ONLY thing that would be removed from the .deb on install 
would be binaries or other read only files that are to be installed but 
should not be modified after installation.  For example, config files 
are likely to be changed after install, so they should be retained in 
the package so a new install will start with a fresh out of the box 
config.


> 
> Installing from .debs is definitely more flexible (network installations,
> custom package selections, server installations and the like), and it's
> worthwhile to discuss this class of solutions because it would be valuable
> to be able to support all of the use cases without compromise.  However, the
> copy approach is an example of optimizing for the common case (in this case
> a desktop install), where we have a faster and simpler, but less flexible,
> option available.
> 

Yea, a simple copy probably is best for the common case.  There probably 
aren't very many packages that would benefit from or require being 
installed from the .deb instead of copied, and those that do ( such as 
the kernel image ) could be given some special case handling during the 
copy process.