Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 07:21:59 +1000 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Installation Packages [was: 2.2.6 CD-ROM : Package dependencies up the creek ?] Message-ID: <19980719072159.16036@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <18668.898473053@time.cdrom.com>; from Jordan K. Hubbard on Sun, Jun 21, 1998 at 04:50:53PM -0700 References: <19980622074850.57163@welearn.com.au> <18668.898473053@time.cdrom.com>
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You may recall we were talking about making it easy for new installers to select a set of appropriate packages, and the idea came up of having a single meta-package that could be offered during installation rather than pondering over a list of hundreds of packages. This would be particularly suited to people who are new to both FreeBSD and Unix. I felt that some additional documentation should be part of it too. On Sun, Jun 21, 1998 at 04:50:53PM -0700, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > Since at this stage I'm rather vague about shell scripts let alone > > packages, and I've seen several others come up with related ideas, this > > will proceed on the basis of "if nobody else does something similar > > before I learn how to do it". > > I strongly urge you to do this even if someone else does do something > like it. This is a category of packages which could stand to have a > lot more than one entry in it and knowing how to create packages of > this nature is a valuable skill. Read the man page for pkg_create (it > will probably take several readings - the material is dense :) and > start off with small single-purpose packages which exercise each > specific feature of packages (install scripts, special PLIST > directives, etc) you're unclear on until you can put it all together. Done. Sort of. I've sussed out everything that's in the documentation, and a few things that are not, and just about got this together. In its present state the package seems to work well for me but could do with prettying up a bit. It installs other packages as provided on the 2.2.6 CD, since that's what I've had around to test it with. Easily fixed. The useful packages have been identified and basic documentation added. At this stage it is probably far too late to have it integrated with sysinstall for 2.2.7 as we had discussed, offered as an alternative to selecting from the list of packages. Obviously that would require someone with skills I don't have to spend some time in the next few days, which is unrealistic. It might even be too late to lump it in with the other packages in the hope that newbies will find it there, depending on how much is wrong with it. I'm letting you guys know where I'm up to anyway, since I did say I would try. It just took too long to get this far from square one. http://www.welearn.com.au/freebsd/newkit/ warts and all. If there is no reason to rush it into the upcoming release, I'll put it aside for now and write more documentation and config files until October. I can't see any way to make it work as a package unless it's either on the CD with the other packages or installed with assistance, and it's aimed at people who haven't got ppp or basic unix skills yet so downloading and fiddling is out of the question. I've learned what I wanted to learn and have other work to get on with. If I can get this far, maybe one of you can do better. -- Regards, -*Sue*- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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