From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Sep 24 15: 8:41 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from panix.com (panix.com [166.84.1.66]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 602A314D27 for ; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 15:08:38 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from rsi@panix.com) Received: (from rsi@localhost) by panix.com (8.8.5/8.8.8/PanixU1.4) id SAA06980; Fri, 24 Sep 1999 18:08:16 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199909242208.SAA06980@panix.com> To: Chris Piazza Cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" , Bill Fumerola , Jaakko Salomaa , hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: A new package fetching utility, pkg_get References: <6939.938202872@localhost> <19990924140357.A71450@norn.ca.eu.org> From: Rajappa Iyer Date: 24 Sep 1999 18:08:15 -0400 Reply-To: rsi@panix.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Chris Piazza writes: > On Fri, Sep 24, 1999 at 12:54:32PM -0700, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > > > Most of what you've shown can be accomplished with 'pkg_add -r' and > > > some enviromental variables. > > > > In its current incarnation, that's pretty much true. However, we also > > intend to throw feature upon feature request onto his pile until > > Jaakko ends up reproducing the Debian package manager for us! :-) > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > Have you actually used that? If so, and you want to reproduce it, > I question your sanity. I completely agree!! Debian's package manager is one of the most infuriatingly buggy piece of software that I've ever used. 1. It does a terrible job at tracking dependencies, IMHO. If you install packages A, B and C at the same time and A depends on C, it's not smart enough to install C first. pkg_order | tsort should do the job, one would presume. 2. It does an even more terrible job at fetching dependencies. Try installing a complex set of programs and files (e.g. gnome) and see how many individual components you have to fetch. Contrast with "cd /usr/ports/x11/gnome; make install". 3. (This is more of a packaging issue) I personally cannot abide by the notion that when you install a library, the header files are not installed. 4. The number of times that I've had a random bug in the {pre|post}{install|remove} scripts essentially render the system unupgradeable is not funny. I have had to go and physically remove some files and edit the package database by hand to get the system back to some sane state. Now one can argue that many of the defects are really cosmetic and many are packaging issues, but I feel that by hacking up a Debian replacement is an inferior solution to leveraging the current (elegant and wonderful) ports mechanism that we have. I personally would rather see an option added to the ports mechanism, which lets you fetch binary, compiled packages instead of source tarballs and still do: "cd /usr/ports/x11/gnome; make -DUSE_BINARY_PACKAGES install" Thanks, Rajappa -- a.k.a. Rajappa Iyer. New York, New York. We're too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message