From owner-freebsd-ports Thu Jan 4 12:45:42 2001 From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 4 12:45:38 2001 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from tao.org.uk (genesis.tao.org.uk [194.242.131.94]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EB4BB37B400; Thu, 4 Jan 2001 12:45:31 -0800 (PST) Received: by tao.org.uk (Postfix, from userid 100) id 8905E323F; Thu, 4 Jan 2001 21:16:31 +0000 (GMT) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 21:16:31 +0000 From: Josef Karthauser To: Christopher Masto Cc: Neil Blakey-Milner , Will Andrews , cvs-committers@FreeBSD.ORG, cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG, ports@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: CPAN ports (was Re: cvs commit: CVSROOT modules) Message-ID: <20010104211631.A23112@tao.org.uk> References: <200101040011.f040B6i84505@freefall.freebsd.org> <20010104140442.G481@tao.org.uk> <20010104162313.A74304@mithrandr.moria.org> <20010104143542.L481@tao.org.uk> <20010104164406.A82823@mithrandr.moria.org> <20010104150018.M481@tao.org.uk> <20010104170549.B95679@mithrandr.moria.org> <20010104141524.D5959@netmonger.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20010104141524.D5959@netmonger.net>; from chris@netmonger.net on Thu, Jan 04, 2001 at 02:15:25PM -0500 Sender: owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org You've hit the hammer on the head Chris. That's exactly what I was thinking. Joe On Thu, Jan 04, 2001 at 02:15:25PM -0500, Christopher Masto wrote: > > On Thu, Jan 04, 2001 at 05:05:49PM +0200, Neil Blakey-Milner wrote: > > On Thu 2001-01-04 (15:00), Josef Karthauser wrote: > > > On Thu, Jan 04, 2001 at 04:44:06PM +0200, Neil Blakey-Milner wrote: > > > > > > > > Yes, it fetches a tarball, runs a common "make" command, and then a > > > > "make install" analogue command. Sounds a lot like what ports does. > > > > > > > > The only difference CPAN really makes is I think autonegotiating > > > > dependencies. If we can grab that, chuck it into the port, then we'll > > > > have an automatic CPAN module port creator. > > > > > > > > There's no reason to use two systems when an existing system can > > > > arbitrarily include the other. (CPAN also requires some interactive > > > > configuration, and may need other tweaks that are already performed to > > > > or by the ports system. It's somewhat unnecessary, I think.) > > > > > > What I'm more thinking about is that at the moment it's not possible > > > to install a p5- port unless it exists and N(p5-ports) < N(cpan modules). > > > Can't we find a way of doing away with _all- the p5-ports and replacing > > > them with some cpan magic? > > > > If you don't want ports, why not just use CPAN? CPAN works just fine. > > I just like and use ports because they auto-generate packages, use the > > same package management tools, and they're all on my local distfiles > > mirror (the closest CPAN mirror is a whole 2 hops further!). > > I think the point that's trying to be made here is that it would be > extremely cool if it were possible to make the ports system > automatically say "Ah, you're looking for p5-FooBar", and invoke the > CPAN module to build and install it. Particularly if we could find a > way to generate the appropriate package magic (consider: CPAN modules > already come with packing lists) so that once it is installed, it > could be managed with the existing pkg_ tools. > > It sounds Hard, and it may involve some patches to the CPAN module, > but it would A: eliminate the wasted space and inodes of a gazillion > p5-* ports, and B: instantly make (almost) all CPAN modules part of > the ports collection. > > Again, it's not that we don't want to use the ports system, it's that > we don't want to have to have a port for every CPAN module when there > may be a way to interface FreeBSD's ports to CPAN. I'm sure the other > free operating systems with package management systems would be > interested in the same thing. Perhaps one of them already has a > solution or has started on this. > -- > Christopher Masto Senior Network Monkey NetMonger Communications > chris@netmonger.net info@netmonger.net http://www.netmonger.net > > Free yourself, free your machine, free the daemon -- http://www.freebsd.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ports" in the body of the message