From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Apr 10 07:20:32 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4A58C106564A; Sat, 10 Apr 2010 07:20:32 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from yanefbsd@gmail.com) Received: from mail-qy0-f181.google.com (mail-qy0-f181.google.com [209.85.221.181]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A33258FC08; Sat, 10 Apr 2010 07:20:31 +0000 (UTC) Received: by qyk11 with SMTP id 11so3385624qyk.13 for ; Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:20:31 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:received:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=nWdkOwURMkz2gc4lVBBDPEsZbYriWAy9KhEIwiZVtvA=; b=ebD5ogm4xcO1SSuM9eqqhcEIFngdu4mLPVvEmlRlAiRjm+r2FHXugobzEGoAnOIW48 auToWdjB6qGxu8tUKzd4e1zT7AjWRTWEHbHU2m17ILFJMVX3YWpZ7k81g7qWfAHCq/WI WhhyUYOXiJ9BvOGvv0ORQbwVqfsC4ySbNOzZI= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=HFHxMA7nOEYj1wbU0hzEMx+tTQpdR7N4n9Nd5ohxRQRjbwjdAjxzEFyODRPIozjqYg xQXvmq2Yc5AyO637Zb2maUFaNQJA/cYk+8af0jf729+md6Ged5mUx3Y+I+NwVxiI7cFh xRr+SxGyBqxyOjgG085q3Jn7WB3uKbu/whhRI= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.229.28.85 with HTTP; Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:20:29 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: <4BBFD502.1010507@elischer.org> Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:20:29 -0700 Received: by 10.229.14.157 with SMTP id g29mr1678954qca.57.1270884029394; Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:20:29 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: From: Garrett Cooper To: "Sam Fourman Jr." Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Mailman-Approved-At: Sat, 10 Apr 2010 11:26:17 +0000 Cc: Adam Vande More , Kris Moore , John Hixson , ports@freebsd.org, Julian Elischer , "Dave Fourman\(Gmail\)" , Matt Olander , Vanessa Kraus , FreeBSD Current Subject: Re: ports and PBIs X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 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: Sat, 10 Apr 2010 07:20:32 -0000 On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Sam Fourman Jr. wrote= : > On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 10:11 PM, Adam Vande More = wrote: >> On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 8:31 PM, Julian Elischer wr= ote: >> >>> >>> Alfred Perlstein , Matt at ix systems Kris (Mr PBI), some >>> others and I, felt that these ideas seemed to make some sense >>> and so I put them here for comment. >>> >>> >> FWIW, when I see these discussions I'm always left wondering what's the = bad >> part? =A0I do think there are problems, but there doesn't seem to be a c= lear >> defined set of what is wrong. =A0 IMO, there should be a defined set of = goals >> to judge possible implementations against. > > > Let me start by saying FreeBSD ports is by far the best system I have > used to date. > but as good as it is, there is room for improvement. > > Being a FreeBSD user now for many years, one thing I think would be nice = is: > being able to have easier access to development ports( Masked ports > kinda like Gentoo). Masking ports and packages in general introduces all sorts of fun new complexity for end users as well as maintainers. The last time I used Gentoo (which was only a matter of months ago), a lot portage packages were still masked even though they've been stable for months, years, etc. This is very annoying for me as an end-user because bug blah could be fixed in a later release but in order to unmask the pieces for version blah, I had to unmask 10~15 other `unstable packages', which greatly increased the chance of instability on my system (this was particularly the case back several years ago, but Gentoo has become more conservative over the years, and appears to be approaching some level of equilibrium with Fedora, Ubuntu, etc in terms of releases and package versioning). > right now is a GREAT example, currently there are new Gnome ,KDE and Xorg= . > these are all MAJOR ports,dependencies run deeper and deeper with every r= elease. > there can never be enough testing...but they all exist in random > subversion servers around the web... ports isn't going to solve this. Post the Xorg modularization (which needed to occur anyhow because Xorg and Xfree86 before that was were monolithic beasts), I personally don't see that change in the amount of flux on a quarterly cycle, and the number of packages I install today isn't that much greater than back 6 years ago when I started using FreeBSD. So, while there might be some claim here to note, I think it's mostly exaggerated. > I would very much like to help test these Major ports, but installing > them is a pain. > there should be some sort of overlay system in place, so I can just > build the development ports > after agreeing to a few well placed warnings of course. and Well if I > hose my system all to hell.. > well then I could just click on a bunch of PBI's and I am back in busines= s... Ok, apart from the interface (click a PBI, and magically you have packages installed)... how is this really different from binary packages? Have you tried installing binary packages lately via pkg_add? If not, I'd give it a shot instead of installing from ports. > better still, make the development ports a PBI, I am just thinking out > loud here,but that may work, toughts? > > one could say I could use merge scripts like marcusmerge for example, > or use Virtualbox... > but for large ports like Xorg and gnome or KDE, virtualbox doesn't cut it= yet... > thinks like Nvidia Video cards, multiple monitors, USB devices, and > whatnot do not work on virtual box.. > PBI's for development ports, with all the dependencies, wrapped in one pa= ckage. Ok, well here's the thing. Instead of having N shared dependencies and libraries in /usr/local/lib, you'd have N**2 shared dependencies and libraries in each and every package. Now, let's look at size difference. Here's just one sample: $ ls -l irssi-0.8.14_1.tbz ~/Downloads/Irssi0.8.14_1-PV0.pbi -rw-r--r-- 1 gcooper gcooper 6856203 Apr 10 00:05 /usr/home/gcooper/Downloads/Irssi0.8.14_1-PV0.pbi -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 517442 Apr 10 00:07 irssi-0.8.14_1.tbz The .tbz file is a file created with pkg_create -b, and the other file is the PBI I pulled off of http://www.pbidir.com/bt/download/210/2079 . Big difference in size (13.25 fold difference). PBIs only comprise a small set of packages in FreeBSD; if my understanding is correct based on a mirror referenced in pbidir.com, the number is currently under 500~750 PBIs -- this is drastically smaller than the number of binary packages produced by ports on a regular basis for FreeBSD. > solution? well let all the developers develop working ports in > progress in one place, give users like me a way to track these changes > and install and test them... I think FreeBSD becomes a better place for i= t. Packages are more of the answer IMO, not PBIs. PBIs are merely a different set of contents and different means of delivering those contents, and while I like the idea of point - click - install, I'm not ready to create unnecessary complexity by having libraries rev'ed according to what the maintainer A believes are correct, even though maintainer B set it differently, and I'm not interested in sacrificing disk space for this reason. If I wanted to use a packaging scheme like this, I should be using Mac OSX as my primary operating system. Thanks, -Garrett PS Don't let this discourage you though in considering the entry-level user case. I'm just apparently more insane than some folks (not as insane as some others though), and I just don't believe in this ideology because things are fine for me as-is.