[fedora-virt] libguestfs under Debian / Ubuntu

[Tim Tassonis]

Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 09:11:51PM +0200, Tim Tassonis wrote:
>> Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 06:09:50PM +0200, Tim Tassonis wrote:
>>>> Hi all
>>>>
>> Yes, of course....but since it is mentioned that febootstrap is based on  
>> debootstrap, is there a technical reason for not just supporting  
>> debootstrap alternatively. I haven't got enough background regarding  
>> debootstrap/febootstrap and libguestfs to make a judgement about this  
>> though.
> 
> I summarised the options here:
> 
> http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-virt/2009-May/msg00003.html
> 
> For the Debian package I went with option (1), since Debian already
> has yum and rpm packaged.

Thanks, I guess in an ideal world the best solution would be to have a 
configure option like

--image=[febootstrap|debootstrap|fixed]

or so, and then the package would be setup to use febootstrap on 
redhat-based systems, debootstrap on debian-based system and fixed to 
use a pre-build image.

As you say, it won't be too difficult, but clearly the patch doesn't 
write itself ...

But such a patch to libguestfs would be accepted in your opinion?

> 
>> But to require any distribution to install yum/rpm just for this library  
>>  seems a bit intrusive to me. Requiring a specific distro packaging  
>> system for a package seems a bit distribution dependant to me.
> 
> It's not like that.  Just because Debian ship yum doesn't mean that
> anyone has to abandon apt.  yum under Debian is only used where
> someone wants to install an RPM-based distro from a Debian host,
> eg. as a chroot, or in a virtual machine, or (as in this case) to
> build an appliance.

Sorry, I didn't mean that, it was clear to me that yum/rpm wouldn't 
replace apt/dpkg, it's just that I think the requirement of febootsrap / 
yum on a debian distribution is a bit problematic.


> 
> Rich.
>