Date: Sun, 13 May 2007 21:37:17 -0700 From: Tim Kientzle <kientzle@freebsd.org> To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Cc: blackdragon@highveldmail.co.za Subject: Re: New FreeBSD package system (a.k.a. Daemon Package System (dps)) Message-ID: <4647E77D.8020807@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <20070513042254.GC1017@dwpc.dwlabs.ca> References: <200705102105.27271.blackdragon@highveldmail.co.za> <4643E10A.5030104@u.washington.edu> <20070513042254.GC1017@dwpc.dwlabs.ca>
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David Naylor volunteered: >Since the installation system is being tackled under a SoC project I am >hoping to give the packaging system a go. Wonderful! Be careful about one point: The packaging system as a whole is a big system; much bigger than many people believe. A lot of people (including myself) have set out to rebuild the package system. Few of us have gotten very far. (For example, I built libarchive in order to rework pkg_add. But changing pkg_add's install logic required rethinking dependency handling, which turned out to be a lot more complex than I thought.) A good place to start is with the existing tools. Search the bug reports, work up fixes to some of them and submit those fixes as follow-ups. Start conservatively; don't break compatibility with existing tools until you understand the system more completely. In particular, expect a lot of skepticism about major format changes until you have some actual numbers to back you up. A lot of people on this mailing list have looked into performance issues with the package system; the real problems may not be where you think they are. >I have searched the FreeBSD mailing lists and have found little >information on the package system. The people who maintain the current codebase are right on this mailing list. Ask away! What do you want to know? Tim Kientzle
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