Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 17:39:36 -0700 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org> Cc: nbm@freebsd.org, Mark Murray <mark@grondar.za>, Julian Elischer <julian@elischer.org>, arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Summary of List of things to move from main tree to ports Message-ID: <3A906B48.CA282D89@softweyr.com> References: <3A8E47DC.FAF7F962@elischer.org> <200102181155.f1IBt7957868@gratis.grondar.za> <3A900185.54C97B10@softweyr.com> <20010218154043.A37703@mollari.cthul.hu>
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Kris Kennaway wrote:
>
> One way to go about this might be to maintain dependency information
> between various binaries or groups of binaries and enforce this as a
> graph relationship which provides a consistent system with various
> features. This ties in with the NetBSD graph-based /etc/rc mechanism
> which Neil Blaker-Milner has been working on. Neil, what's the status
> of that anyway?
Interesting. This was discussed to death and then dropped a couple of
years ago, but I see a lot of promise there. Finding a simple way to
describe the dependencies such that they can be processed with a tool
seems to be the only real hurdle to having such an rc mechanism.
> For example, a standalone system which is not internet-connected
> wouldn't need to install the "network utilities" (telnet, ssh, ftp) or
> the "network services" (inetd, sshd, ...). It would be tricky
> (perhaps just time-consuming) to get the dependencies right on the
> level of individual binaries, but you could imagine the management
> system allowing selection/deselection of individual elements of a set
> as well.
Another advantage is that we can build "system profiles" into the release
and installation tools. Non-system programmers could easily contribute
to these system profiles by building the system of their dreams then taking
a snapshot of what they have installed on the system. We could drop these
into various categories and offer them as advanced install options. I
envision profiles like:
Workstations
Standard workstation in flavors:
Gnome/Enlightenment
KDE
WindowMaker + WDM + DockApps + whatever
Small workstation (i.e. laptop)
FreeBSD development workstation (sources for everything)
Graphics workstation
Secure workstation
High-function workstation (everything in x11*)
Mail Servers
Standard mail server (sendmail, uw-imap, net tools?)
Secure mail server (postfix, cyrus, ssh only?)
Multiple-domain virtual mail server
and so on. Just think, we could even get Brett Glass to contribute his
own profiles, and he would be able to have the Brett Glass installation
he's always wanted, but we've never been able to deliver.
(This is NOT a slap at Brett, but rather recognition that with some added
flexibility in the build and install tools, we could provide what he has
often asked for.)
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
wes@softweyr.com http://softweyr.com/
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