Subject: Bug#3976: msdos-i386 not found

From: [email-masked] (Erick Branderhorst)
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 10:10:19 +0100

Package: dpkg, (archive-structure)
Version: 1.2.12

I didn't test whether one can install from a dos copy of the debian 
archive.  However I can imagine that a search/check is done on a
directory with the name "msdos-$(ARCH)" (i.e. msdos-i386, msdos-m68k).
Such a directory will never be found on a dos archive.

It seems that we have to restrict ourselves on using 8 character names
for directories above the dos files.  All directories follow this 
approach (except buzz-fixed, buzz-updates) and the above mentioned
msdos-i386 dirs.  I suggest that we rearrange the archive (after the
release of debian 1.2 (or 1.3?) and make the structure more
hierarchical:

.../debian/unstable/i386/binary/...
                        /msdos/...
                        /source -> ../source
                    m68k/binary/...
                        /msdos/...
                        /source -> ../source
                    source/...
&c

Erick

---

From: Ian Jackson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 96 01:38 BST

Erick Branderhorst writes ("Bug#3976: msdos-i386 not found"):
...
> Such a directory will never be found on a dos archive.

In fact, such a check is not done.

> .../debian/unstable/i386/binary/...

This is not necessary.  You can't use dselect's `install from
nicely-laid out full archive tree' option, because you don't have one
on an msdos filesystem, but you can download the .deb files and
Packages files into whatever directories you like and tell dselect
about them.

I don't think that adding yet more layers to our already very deep FTP
structure is a good idea.

I'm closing the report.

Ian.