Date: Sun, 07 Jul 2002 09:00:03 -0700 From: Cy Schubert - CITS Open Systems Group <Cy.Schubert@uumail.gov.bc.ca> To: Dan Moschuk <dan@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Package system flaws? Message-ID: <200207071600.g67G03fP014193@cwsys.cwsent.com> In-Reply-To: Message from Dan Moschuk <dan@FreeBSD.ORG> of "Sat, 06 Jul 2002 18:05:11 EDT." <20020706220511.GA88651@scoobysnax.jaded.net>
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In message <20020706220511.GA88651@scoobysnax.jaded.net>, Dan Moschuk
writes:
>
> I've been doing some thinking lately about our ports system versus what
> other systems have adopted and was curious as to what people think on
> the subject? What does FreeBSD do well? Where can we improve? How does it
> rate against the umpteen Linux flavours?
Comparing our package system with others, such as RH's RPM. Sun's pkg*,
and DEC's... er Compaq's... er HP's setld, the FreeBSD pkg_* utilities
are one of the better package applications in the industry. Actually I
like our package system better than Suns. However, I have been spoiled
by 19 years of using IBM's SMP/E (and it's predecessor SMP) for the MVS
(mainframe) operating system prior to my 10 years in the UNIX world.
Unfortunately I don't think we have enough people on the project to
build the Cadillac (some might argue monstrosity), with all of its
bells, whistles, prereq's, coreq's, functions, dependent functions,
PTF's, APARFIXES, USERMODS, zones, recovery, and other handy features
that IBM has built for MVS over the past 40 years. Interestingly IBM
has not ported SMP/E to AIX, probably because it would take them an ice
age to port and SMP/E isn't the easiest application to understand --
most people hated it while the few of us who fully understood it loved
it. Excluding the IBM "anomaly," I think we probably have the best
package system in the market.
Can we improve our package system? Yes. Can I think of any? Well, if
we want to keep it simple, I cannot think of any enhancements that
would improve our lives, except for possibly a GUI front end.
--
Cheers, Phone: 250-387-8437
Cy Schubert Fax: 250-387-5766
Team Leader, Sun/Alpha Team Email: Cy.Schubert@osg.gov.bc.ca
Open Systems Group, CITS
Ministry of Management Services
Province of BC
FreeBSD UNIX: cy@FreeBSD.org
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