From owner-freebsd-questions Tue May 2 4:40:17 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from rock.ghis.net (rock.ghis.net [209.222.164.7]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B97FB37B6D7; Tue, 2 May 2000 04:40:09 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from will@blackdawn.com) Received: from argon.blackdawn.com (deepspace9.dcds.edu [207.231.151.2]) by rock.ghis.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id EAA40662; Tue, 2 May 2000 04:39:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: by argon.blackdawn.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id C6D2E1941; Tue, 2 May 2000 07:38:58 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 07:38:58 -0400 From: Will Andrews To: Rahul Siddharthan Cc: Will Andrews , Alfred Perlstein , Randy Katz , Shawn Barnhart , "questions@freebsd.org" , ports@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: stop complaining about x11 please (was: Re: Why does PORTS SUCK so BADLY!?) Message-ID: <20000502073857.A392@argon.blackdawn.com> References: <009b01bfb389$96546cf0$b8209fc0@marlowe> <20000501101044.F24573@fw.wintelcom.net> <00b901bfb38f$e4625cd0$b8209fc0@marlowe> <20000501105116.B32172@ccsales.com> <20000501113038.I24573@fw.wintelcom.net> <20000501234432.A2998@physics.iisc.ernet.in> <20000501150045.A391@argon.blackdawn.com> <20000502004233.A3681@physics.iisc.ernet.in> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0.1i In-Reply-To: <20000502004233.A3681@physics.iisc.ernet.in>; from rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in on Tue, May 02, 2000 at 12:42:33AM +0530 X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT i386 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tue, May 02, 2000 at 12:42:33AM +0530, Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > My benchmark would be that if the original tarball configures and > builds without this dependency, the port should not insist on it > (there should be some user-choice); but if the original configure > script refuses to continue, then the dependency should be retrieved > and built automatically. To take another example, mpeg-lib or aalib The problem is, if a port uses more dependencies than are registered by the packaging mechanism, there will be no way to warn the user. That is to say, if the configure script decides it will build with something just because it exists on the system (as opposed to if it's explicitly enabled or disabled by a configure argument), pkg_* will not register that library and/or runtime dependency AS A DEPENDENCY IN ${PKG_DBDIR}! This means, if, at some later point the user tries to delete the dependency, they won't get any safeguards from the pkg_* mechanism. So if a library is deleted; the program that was linked to it WILL NOT RUN! If a runtime dependency was deleted, the program may not run or won't run correctly. And so forth. Which is a big problem in ports (that no one has had time to solve yet). > in Gimp are optional, but gtk/glib are not. Either there could be a > PORT_MINIMAL=yes or the user could be prompted with a (y/n) dialogue > whether such optional packages should be retrieved, or there could > just be warning messages about missing functionality. I don't know > how difficult it would be to implement but I feel it would be useful. This sort of thing has been on my plate to work on for awhile. I believe Jeremy Lea had something to help accomodate this, but I never saw any code and/or ideas on implementation from him. Or perhaps I simply don't remember seeing any. :-) Respectfully, -- Will Andrews GCS/E/S @d- s+:+>+:- a--->+++ C++ UB++++ P+ L- E--- W+++ !N !o ?K w--- ?O M+ V-- PS+ PE++ Y+ PGP+>+++ t++ 5 X++ R+ tv+ b++>++++ DI+++ D+ G++>+++ e->++++ h! r-->+++ y? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message