alsa-* moved to desktop
Colin Watson
cjwatson at ubuntu.com
Mon Feb 18 17:41:48 GMT 2008
I'm moving alsa-base and alsa-utils from the minimal seed to desktop-common
following a conversation on #ubuntu-devel. I thought the rationale might be
interesting to copy here for the record.
<mtaylor> um... why does ubuntu-minimal depend on alsa-base alsa-utils? Do I really need sound on a minimal system?
<crimsun_> that point has been raised several times.
<mtaylor> ok
<mtaylor> any chance there's a ranting web page explaining the choice somewhere?
<crimsun_> I don't know offhand.
<Nafallo> crimsun_: what's your opinion on that one? :-)
<Nafallo> just curious
<crimsun_> it should be at most Recommends.
* mtaylor thinks that if we think sound is an integral part of the system, there should be an alternate ubuntu-server package one can install ...
<Nafallo> yea. of standard :-)
<mtaylor> Nafallo++
<Nafallo> mtaylor: all servers are diverse and different. so I don't believe in a server seed
<mtaylor> Nafallo: I don't really either...
<mtaylor> Nafallo: I'm just saying that if minimal is going to stick desktop need in... I would like a server thing that doesn't have them
<Nafallo> hehe
<cjwatson> mtaylor: the reason we put that stuff in ubuntu-minimal is because alsa-* is needed for stability of hardware detection
<mtaylor> cjwatson: wow. really?
<cjwatson> mtaylor: all possible server profiles are by design supersets of minimal
<cjwatson> we certainly won't be offering anything that's less than that
<mtaylor> cjwatson: I would certainly expect them to be supersets of minimal
<cjwatson> I would like to see stuff organised such that we didn't need alsa-* in minimal for stability though
<mtaylor> I would agree.
<mtaylor> I can understand their existence there for that reason - but I would suggest that it's a bug in hardware detection that that is the case
<cjwatson> it's not as important as it used to be, actually
<cjwatson> it used to be that the installer was two-stage; after installing a minimal system, it rebooted to install everything else, and then dropped you into the final system without rebooting again
<cjwatson> so, if stuff like alsa-base that provides /etc/modprobe.d files and alsa-utils that provides udev rules weren't installed in the first pass, your first boot would be different from all the rest
<cjwatson> however, in dapper, we finally got the installer reorganised so that it could all operate in a single stage
<cjwatson> so I think there is now a case for moving alsa-* to desktop
<cjwatson> crimsun_: what do you think?
<crimsun_> cjwatson: agreed.
Thanks,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]
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