[DEP-BLOAT] 'mkinitrd' ships 'nash' and requires lot of low-level stuff

[Enrico Scholz]

arjan at fenrus.demon.nl (Arjan van de Ven) writes:

>> 'nash' and this deps are used for different purposes:
>> 
>> * 'nash' is called by 'initscripts' during every boot
>
> it is ??

$ rpm -qR initscripts | grep nash
/sbin/nash

$ grep nash /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit
killall nash-hotplug >/dev/null 2>&1
echo "raidautorun /dev/md0" | nash --quiet
echo "mkdmnod" | /sbin/nash --quiet >/dev/null 2>&1


>> * the low-level stuff is used during kernel upgrade only
>
> actually they are used at each boot as well, just from the initrd
> itself.

yes; but a copy is used. Not the file from the current 'mkinitrd'
package.


>> Therefore, they should be packaged separately.
>
> why? Both are going to be mandatory anyway.... mkinitrd is when you want
> to be able to upgrade kernels, or build your own or ...

* chroot environments do not need this
* when:
  - a program ('nash' in this case) is used by other packages ('initscripts')
    and
  - this program does not require rest of the package (generate-initrd
    functionality) and
  - the rest of the package adds lot of dependencies (device-mapper,
    dmraid, ...) which are not needed for the program
  then it is a good packaging style to provide both parts in separate
  subpackages.



Enrico