From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 10 22:32:09 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 29F6116A4CE; Tue, 10 May 2005 22:32:09 +0000 (GMT) Received: from heave.ugcs.caltech.edu (heave.ugcs.caltech.edu [131.215.176.104]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E1A6643D92; Tue, 10 May 2005 22:32:07 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jd@ugcs.caltech.edu) Received: by heave.ugcs.caltech.edu (Postfix, from userid 3640) id 61D2D8F3B6; Tue, 10 May 2005 15:32:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by heave.ugcs.caltech.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3E78AEAA68; Tue, 10 May 2005 15:32:05 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 15:32:05 -0700 (PDT) From: Jon Dama To: "Bruce A. Mah" In-Reply-To: <1115735657.20796.15.camel@tomcat.kitchenlab.org> Message-ID: References: <20050509114410.GA2184@uk.tiscali.com> <20050510.005542.95903608.imp@bsdimp.com> <1115735657.20796.15.camel@tomcat.kitchenlab.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org cc: "M. Warner Losh" cc: Brian Candler Subject: Re: Packaging of base system X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 22:32:09 -0000 There is an essential difference between packaging the base system and having a distribution in the style of the linux distributions: The "base system" packages are treated differently from the greater ports collection: They are released periodically as a unit. They are versioned as a unit. They have POLA assurances. Right now the base system is already loosely packaged. i.e., there are knobs in /etc/make.conf to control which parts get built. The points of trouble are: 1) sysinstall doesn't understand this granularity 2) the user visible means of manipulating which parts of the base system are installed are gratuitously different from ports. 2a) no mechanism exists to verify that /etc/make.conf contains a consistent set of components (dependency issues)--no mechanism that is accept to try and see what crumbles a couple of hours later. -Jon On Tue, 10 May 2005, Bruce A. Mah wrote: > If memory serves me right, Brian Candler wrote: > > On Tue, May 10, 2005 at 12:55:42AM -0600, M. Warner Losh wrote: > > > As this comes up all the time, I'd say just do it. People here will > > > talk your ear off. > > > > OK. I am just a bit dubious about starting a large chunk of work, only to be > > told later "we're not going to commit this, the consensus here is we don't > > want to do it this way because X / Y / Z" > > The way to do this (and maybe this is already obvious to you) is to > start with as small a chunk of work as you can do (think "proof of > concept" or even "implementation notes")...don't try to get it all > perfect before putting it out for comments / feedback / bikesheds. In > the worst case, if it turns out that everybody hates the idea, you've at > least cut your losses. > > You probably want some early feedback from re@ (once they've recovered > from getting 5.4 out). > > Honestly I'm not sure if I like this idea or not. My most recent > experience with a fully packaged system is with RH/FC Linux > distributions and many times I feel like I'm in a twisty little maze of > RPMs, all different. You seem to be proposing a more coarse-grained > packaging, which I think is more workable. > > > Incidentally, do we have a current status on this? > > http://people.freebsd.org/~kientzle/libarchive/libpkg.3.txt > > > > This looks like a pre-requisite for turning the base system into packages. > > You could just email Tim and ask him. > > Bruce. > >