Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 02:28:04 +0200 From: Benjamin Lutz <benlutz@datacomm.ch> To: Brooks Davis <brooks@one-eyed-alien.net> Cc: ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: prebuild sanity checks Message-ID: <4303D614.2090702@datacomm.ch> In-Reply-To: <20050818001258.GA14367@odin.ac.hmc.edu> References: <20050817195839.GA22027@odin.ac.hmc.edu> <4303CF35.400@datacomm.ch> <20050818001258.GA14367@odin.ac.hmc.edu>
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This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 2440 and 3156) --------------enig1B5DEB161D95C0E6120F80C3 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>>Another option might be a new variable (or variables) that ports that >>>tend to break spectacularly and unobviously can set like: >>> >>>BUILD_DEVS= null zero >> >>As a potential user of such a variable, I wonder how I'm supposed to >>figure out which basic system facilities are required by a given piece >>of software. > > Either by having it fail and debugging it or by doing a build with one > of the common culprates missing from devfs. In theory it would see that > you could do a periodic sweep using the package cluster. I can't test every possible environment as a ports maintainer. I can't even test every possible standard FreeBSD release. If there's just 10 different things that are being tested for, the cluster would have to test for each of them in turn - sounds like quite a bit of work with 13000 ports. >>I think the right thing to do here would be to have the software react >>more sensibly to such a problem, ie bail out with an error message. In >>other words: have the people upstream change their software. > > In theory yes. In practice, I'm sure a lot of software authors won't > care about supporting this environment. True. As a ports maintainer, I'm afraid to say, neither do I. I can see the value of this though. I've set up a couple of jails too, I know how annoying it can be to track down dependencies. Why not start collecting data on which software needs which system facilities outside the ports system? Set up a website with a public database/wiki? That way, non-FreeBSD users would be helped too. Cheers Benjamin --------------enig1B5DEB161D95C0E6120F80C3 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (Darwin) iD8DBQFDA9YXgShs4qbRdeQRAhQXAKCERH4Bs4W0PLbvPoVBoNNe0CC0kgCgkdEr YPzZ6AWBjC6zCH9V3XeQ6x0= =Yrd9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------enig1B5DEB161D95C0E6120F80C3--
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