Debian Configuration Management Using Smodels

Recently I have been developing a formal configuration model for the configuration problem of the Debian GNU/Linux system. While the work has not yet reached a stage where it could be used in practice, the preliminary results seem promising.

The configuration model is implemented using the smodels system and lparse front-end.

The configuration models are not yet finished, but the current version seems to capture the basic properties of Debian configuration management. The model is otherwise quite complete, but preference rules are not complete, yet.

Publications on using the stable model semantics on configuration management:

1999 Tommi Syrjänen: A Rule-Based Formal Model for Software Configuration in the Report Series of Digital Systems Laboratory, number A55.

1999 T. Soininen and I. Niemelä. Developing a declarative rule language for applications in product configuration. In Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages, San Antonio, Texas, May 1999. Springer-Verlag. See LNCS Series Homepage.

1998 T. Soininen and I. Niemelä. Formalizing Configuration Knowledge Using Rules with Choices . Technical Report TKO-B142, Laboratory of Information Processing Science, Helsinki University of Technology, 1998. Presented at the Workshop on Formal Aspects and Applications of Nonmonotonic Reasoning, Trento, Italy, May 31, 1998.