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Date:      Tue, 30 Sep 1997 07:59:13 -0400 (EDT)
From:      "Alex.Boisvert" <boia01@castor.GEL.USherb.CA>
To:        Warner Losh <imp@village.org>
Cc:        scott@statsci.com, jgrosch@superior.mooseriver.com, "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>, ports@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Uh oh.. Time to take another look at the packages collection! 
Message-ID:  <Pine.SOL.3.91.970930072931.8077A-100000@castor>
In-Reply-To: <199709300401.WAA16107@harmony.village.org>

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Since we can't have all the ports one one media (CD for instance), 
we need a new concept to "map" each port on a "carring media". As 
suggested, we could have a "Table Of Contents" which does this.

What I suggest is that we create "volumes".  One port would belong to a
given volume, which is not necessarily associated with its current
category.  

The TOC would access a "volume map" to know where a given port is located on
media.  (Could be "CD-1", "CD-2" or "ftp.freebsd.org" or "floppy-58").  The
volume map would give some kind of base "URL" to fetch the port/distfile.
Since we are dealing with removable media in some cases, there some also be
a marking on the media to verify that the "mounted" media is the one we 
want to access.  The marking could be a file named after the "volume name"
and located at the base URL.  (ie:  ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/volume1)

Ok.  Here how it would look:
--------------------------------

file: INDEX.TOC
format:  name, filename (relative to base), volume set, description, ...

freeze-2.5,archivers/freeze,arc1,MELT compression,...
sharutils-4.1.4,archivers/gshar_gunshar,arc2,SHAR compression,...

----

file: VOLUME.MAP
format: volume name, one or more base url

arc1,file://cdrom
arc2,ftp://ftp.freebsd.org
arc3,file://cdrom
comm1,file://usr/local/ports,ftp://ftp.localsite.org
jp1,ftp://ftp.freebsd.org
default,file://cdrom,file://usr/local/ports,ftp://ftp.freebsd.org
...

---

Each entry specifies a "path" to look for the port.  This is necessary 
because some lucky people have 7-disk-changers and one CD isn't necessarily
always in the same logical CD-drive.  In this case, the port installer
would search the given path in sequential order.

When I have a CD with volume sets "arc1" and "arc2" mounted locally, 
the following files would exists:  /cdrom/arc1 and /cdrom/arc2.
If the volume marker isn't found, the port installer would prompt the user 
to insert/mount (automount?) the correct media.

I haven't talked about how to separate the ports in multiple volume sets
but I think many will volunteer for this and have already done so ;-)

Again, this is just a suggestion based on what other people have
already pointed out.

Regards,
Alex.




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