07.06.2014 Views

2 - Raspberry PI Community Projects

2 - Raspberry PI Community Projects

2 - Raspberry PI Community Projects

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

ole, and their fame has spread beyond the scope of the project. Good examples are dpkg, the<br />

Debian package management program (it is, in fact, an abbreviation of Debian PacKaGe), and<br />

apt, a tool to automatically install any Debian package, and its dependencies, guaranteeing the<br />

cohesion of the system after upgrade (its name is an acronym for Advanced Package Tool). Their<br />

teams are, however, much smaller, since a rather high level of programming skill is required for<br />

overall understanding of the operations of these types of programs.<br />

The most important team is probably that for the Debian installation program, debian-insta<br />

ller, which has accomplished a work of momentous proportions since its conception in 2001.<br />

Numerous contributors were needed, since it is difficult to write a single program able to install<br />

Debian on a dozen different architectures. Each one has its own mechanism for booting and<br />

its own bootloader. All of this work is coordinated on the debian-boot@lists.debian.org mailing<br />

list, under the direction of Otavio Salvador and Joey Hess.<br />

➨ http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/<br />

➨ http://kitenet.net/~joey/blog/entry/d-i_retrospective/<br />

The debian-cd program team, very small, has an even more modest objective. Many “small”<br />

contributors are responsible for their architecture, since the main developer can not know all<br />

the subtleties, nor the exact way to start the installer from the CD-ROM.<br />

Many teams must collaborate with others in the activity of packaging: debian-qa@lists.debian.<br />

org tries, for example, to ensure quality at all levels of the Debian project. The debian-policy@<br />

lists.debian.org list develops Debian Policy according to proposals from all over the place. The<br />

teams in charge of each architecture (debian-architecture@lists.debian.org) compile all packages,<br />

adapting them to their particular architecture, if needed.<br />

Other teams manage the most important packages in order to ensure maintenance without placing<br />

too heavy a load on a single pair of shoulders; this is the case with the C library and debianglibc@lists.debian.org,<br />

the C compiler on the debian-gcc@lists.debian.org list, or Xorg on the<br />

debian-x@lists.debian.org (this group is also known as the X Strike Force, coordinated by Cyril<br />

Brulebois).<br />

1.4. The Role of Distributions<br />

A GNU/Linux distribution has two main objectives: install a free operating system on a computer<br />

(either with or without an existing system or systems), and provide a range of software<br />

covering all of the users' needs.<br />

1.4.1. The Installer: debian-installer<br />

The debian-installer, designed to be extremely modular in order to be as generic as possible,<br />

answers the first. It covers a broad range of installation situations and in general, greatly<br />

facilitates the creation of a derivative installer to correspond to a particular case.<br />

This modularity, which makes it also very complex, may annoy the developers discovering this<br />

Chapter 1 — The Debian Project<br />

21

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!