Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 13:21:15 -0500 (EST) From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> To: Mikhail Teterin <mi@aldan.algebra.com> Cc: anarcat@anarcat.dyndns.org, rwatson@FreeBSD.org, jkh@winston.freebsd.org, winter@jurai.net, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org, cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org, obrien@FreeBSD.org, pst@pst.org, des@ofug.org, imp@village.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/usr.sbin/sysinstall install.c installUpgrade Message-ID: <XFMail.20020404132115.jhb@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <200204041754.g34HsNnF005867@aldan.algebra.com>
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On 04-Apr-2002 Mikhail Teterin wrote: >>> A package is, typicly, downloaded or found on a CD -- in both cases >>> the file can be seeked around. IMHO, in this case space should be >>> given priority in the eternal "time vs. space" argument. > >> In the case of a fat package you wouldn't actually download the parts >> of the package you didn't need if you got the package via a bitstream >> that you could seek on. > > Well, when installation is from a CD or other such media, your argument > is lost -- I already have the seekable file. So, it seems, the new > design is addressing installations over the network. Well, if I have a fat package (say I have a package with binaries for multiple archs) then having a seekable file format (tar is not as efficient for this) means you can still skip over parts of the package you don't need and only read the bits off disk that you do need. Fat binaries such as these would likely only be used for network installs, but for the vim/vim-lite (or foo/foo-gnome/foo-kde/foo-gtk/foo-qt/foo-gtk-esound/etc.) case, you would still not have to decompress and read through all of the gvim binary to find the vim-lite binary like you would if you used tar. >> No, the fact is that we have thought about some of the problems the >> current scheme doesn't address and which you haven't apparently >> thought about how to address either. > > Mmm, sounds familiar :( Can you explain, what those are, or point me to > the mail archive, where this was discussed? Most of it was not discussed on the mail archive, but some of it was in a post Jordan made to arch I think. Most of this is out of Jordan's head and stuff that I got from personal conversations. There might also be some discussions about this on the libh@ archives. However, some thoughts: The new package system will move much of the smarts into the package and out of the package tools. This means that each package uses scripts to install and configure itself. For example, parts of a package can be conditionally installed. Thus, the way a new package will work is that the package tool will simply locate the 'install' script and run it (in a sort of sandbox so the admin can arbitrarily limit what items a script may perform, you could use this to do the equivalent of a make -n or some such for example). The install script can then also use hte libh UI tools to interface with the user to ask for preferences, etc. Given that, it seems (or seemed at least) desirable to not require one to have to download or read in and decompress the entire archive. Rather, it would be nice to only have to fetch the actual install script and whatever bits it then requested during the install process. This allows for a much more flexible interface for packages than just untarring binaries into a directory. For example, almost all of the current configuration stuff in sysinstall would move into the configure scripts for the packages representing the base system (perhaps a bin package?) Sysinstall would then basically just become a package engine used to install both 3rd party packages (like those ports would generate) and base system packages. The argument for .zip then dissolves down to the "requirement" that we be able to extract only certain bits of a package w/o touching other bits and also the desire to not have to write a new compression program. However, you can feel free to step up and go help the libh folks out as I'm sure they would appreciate it. -- John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> <>< http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message
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