Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 01:10:48 +0100 From: Michel Talon <talon@lpthe.jussieu.fr> To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Utility for safe updating of ports in base system Message-ID: <20080320001048.GA39125@lpthe.jussieu.fr>
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Doug Barton wrote: > So, I renew my inquiry. :) Is portmaster a suitable candidate to fulfill > the role of the utility described, and if not, why not? At the risk of being flamed, i would venture to say that such an utility should be able to upgrade things based of *binary* packages, and consequently that portmaster is not a suitable candidate. For example pkg_add installs a binary package, if you want to compile and install you run "make all install clean" in the ports tree. One of the requirements of an upgrade system is predictability, this can only be achieved by using binary packages. Another requirement, in my opinion, is speed, and the lack of speed, which is completely hidden when you compile your packages will be immediately apparent if you try to use packages. Indeed portupgrade has options -P and -PP to work with packages which could serve as a prototype for a "pkg_upgrade" written in C, except that they work poorly, and in particular run slowly. In my opinion, an example of a correct "pkg_upgrade" type programm written in C++ is the Debian apt-get. It works predictably, fast, etc. One of its features, that i consider very important for correct operation, is that it computes the list of all packages to be deleted and all packages to be installed and asks the user if he agrees before doing anything. It fetches all necessary packages before installing or deleting anything. Hence you can be sure that the upgrade process will not end in a mess if something crashes in the middle, like it is the case with all present standard FreeBSD upgraders. -- Michel TALON
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