The plan is to transition in Etch from console-tools and console-data, which are unmaintained upstream, to kbd. This page is for tracking issues around this transition, which mostly affect debian-installer.
- console-tools has some features and patches not present in kbd: (which are?) : identify these and port to kbd.
- console-data has data files not present in kbd. I plan to keep console-data ongoing, but optional rather than base. Important kbd maps, console fonts, etc. should be in kbd, with others in console-data. This should remove some bloat from base. Also, console-data has the Unicode data files in /usr/share/unidata, which take up an unnecessary 1.4 MiB of data in base; these should be in optional.
- Change console-common. console-common is a good idea (debconf integration) not properly implemented; it should be better integrated with console-cyrillic, fonty, console-data and kbd using it.
The harder bits:
console-data generates the console-keymap- udebs for debian-installer. Have kbd do this instead.
- kbd-config in debian-installer duplicates code with kbd. Currently I prefer the idea of kbd-config being a fully-fledged debian package (as well as udeb), with the common code being a library from the kbd package. kbd upstream (Andries Brouwer) is happy in principle with splitting kbd into kbd and library parts; details need planning. (This bit is optional for Etch).
A fuller wishlist of what I'd like to do is at http://people.debian.org/~mckinstry/console-plans.html ; the above console->kbd transition should be implemented ASAP to help release planning.
Transitional console-*, kbd packages should be prepared in experimental and d-i builds and sarge upgrades tested before releasing to sid.
-- Alastair ?McKinstry, mckinstry@debian,org, 2005-06-18