Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 13:59:46 -0700 From: Mark Shepard <mns@MetaThink.COM> To: Doug White <dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu>, Christian Carstensen <cc@devcon.net>, Chris Piazza <cpiazza@home.net>, Chris Costello <chris@calldei.com>, Patryk Zadarnowski <patrykz@mycenae.ilion.eu.org>, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: updating packages automatically... Message-ID: <19990929135946.A56245@ed209.home> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9909282038080.87789-100000@resnet.uoregon.edu>; from Doug White on Tue, Sep 28, 1999 at 08:40:50PM -0700 References: <19990928114145.A41493@ed209.home> <Pine.BSF.4.10.9909282038080.87789-100000@resnet.uoregon.edu>
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Doug White said: > On Tue, 28 Sep 1999, Mark Shepard wrote: > > I _like_ the idea of a email-summary of "What's New in the World of Ports". > > We used to have this. I think it morphed into the webpage mutation we > have now (note you can request all the changed ports in the last X time > frame). > > Maybe it's posted to the -ports mailing list? Is this information the same as the periodic postings to comp.os.bsd.freebsd.announce? In the context of this thread (automatically updating/maintaining the ports one has chosen to install) I'd want the information filtered based on the ports I actually had installed. As a sysadmin, I may certainly be interested in reading about new ports, but I'm _more_ interested in reading about any updates to the ports I'm actually using, and in particular seeing _why_ the update occurred (was it a critical bug fix or just a few more features?) so that I can prioritize correctly. I imagine the email sent by the automatic ports maintainence program might look like this (one entry for each port/package which has been updated): | fetchmail-5.0.8 | Batch mail retrieval/forwarding utility for pop2, pop3, apop, imap | Maintained by: ve@sci.fi | | fetchmail-4.7.0 is currently installed. | Changes from 4.7.0 to 5.0.8: | blah | blah | blah | (this could be generated by diffing ChangeLog or README files) | | Updating this port will also require updating: | port1 | port2 | port3 | (fetchmail's doesn't depend on anything..., but if it did | I'd want to see not simply _all_ the dependencies, but _only_ | those which were out of date/would need to be updated). | | All necessary distfiles have been downloaded. | (or, an error msg indicating which distfiles couldn't be | downloaded from any of the mirrors. This gives you an idea of | how long it'll take to do the update, just 'make install' or | will you have to grovel around to find the files...) | | To update this port, click here <https://localhost/pkgmgr.cgi>; | or give the commands "cd /usr/ports/*, make install, blah blah blah." This seems like a feature which would be very useful to people using FreeBSD commercially as an application platform, who unlike the hobbyists or developers may not have time, inclination or reason to experiment with every new port and instead want to focus on maintaining only the ports they are actually using. Another way to look at it -- installing a port automatically "subscribes" you to maintainence information about that port. Currently when I install a s/w package I also subscribe to the developer's announce list (if there is one) or to the general list (and filter for announcements), which takes time. OTOH, what I'm proposing isn't an ideal way to get information on critical bugs in s/w packages one may be using because of the time-lag between a bug being discovered, fixed and then the fix being incorporated into the FBSD port and picked up via CVSup. Still, for less-critical s/w packages (or for users who are less critical of their s/w :-) this mechanism seems like it'd still be a time-saver. Don't take this the wrong way - The periodic postings of _all_ additions to the ports collection are _great_! Wonderful! Fastastic! :-) But in the context of this thread (automatically updating/maintaining the ports one has installed), I think some additional features could be even more useful. Doug White said: > I think a 'make checkdep' type target to run the dependency check w/o > actually building them would be a plus. This should be very easy to do w/ > the current bsd.port.mk frame. Chris Piazza <cpiazza@home.net> said: > make package-depends might be what you're looking for. Thanks. package-depends could be a starting point for the mechanism I'd like. It seems to return all the dependencies (including duplicates, easily uniq'd), but I'd want to know which dependencies have actually been superceded. BTW, perhaps this has already been discussed elsewhere, but would it be reasonable for an "automatic package maintainer" to allow the option of downloading and building from (source) distfiles, or (binary) packages? "That's an issue with the ports makefile system and/or pkg_add", you may say, but since I've also proposed that the "automatic package maintainer" download distfiles in the background (so the sysadmin doesn't have to wait for the downloads in the foreground), the "automatic package maintainer" would need to know your preference of using distfiles or pre-built packages. Mark To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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