Date: Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:52:38 +0100 From: Chris Whitehouse <cwhiteh@onetel.com> To: Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk> Cc: User Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: new package system proposal Message-ID: <49DBBD16.70204@onetel.com> In-Reply-To: <49DAF4AF.4060104@infracaninophile.co.uk> References: <49D76B02.4060201@onetel.com> <20090404170401.c0f0bce0.freebsd@edvax.de> <49D789BD.7020103@infracaninophile.co.uk> <49DA7BF0.80403@onetel.com> <49DAF4AF.4060104@infracaninophile.co.uk>
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Matthew Seaman wrote: > Chris Whitehouse wrote: > >> You've suggested solutions to a couple of Polytropon's objections, >> thank you. Do you think there is anough mileage in my suggestion to >> make it worth putting in front of some ports people? What would have >> to happen to take it forward? I could rewrite the proposal more clearly. > > Any well-considered proposal is interesting, and suitable fodder for the > freebsd-ports@... mailing list. However you must be prepared for your > ideas to undergo some fairly rigourous critique by people who have spent > a great deal of time in doing exactly the sort of operations you are > talking > about. It can be pretty daunting -- remember though that it is your > /ideas/ > that are being dissected: it's not a personal attack against you for having > the temerity to try and suggest something. > > Also, as ever in the FreeBSD world, code speaks louder than words. It's > easy for anyone to come up with a proposal, hard to turn that into a > prototype > that demonstrates the validity of your ideas. Expect skepticism until you > have done that. >> I suspect it would be easier to implement than freebsd-update, as a >> good deal of the infrastructure already exists, and would have similar >> benefits. To start developing it would require a ports tree and a >> selection of packages compiled from that ports tree. 7.2 Release is >> coming up. Maybe the ports tree plus packages from that would be a >> good place to start. > > freebsd-update and portsnap existed only on Colin Percival's own machines > for quite some time, and then they were made available through ports > before being accepted into the core system. That is the usual sort of > progression > for any major new system modifications. > > The infrastructure may well exist, but don't assume that there is any spare > capacity on it. Getting time on the ports build cluster for running > experiments > is not impossible, but it's somewhere way down the queue after the daily > work of building packages for the FTP sites and testing the effects of bug > fixes in the bsd.ports.mk infrastructure or important and highly > interconnected > groups of ports like xorg or gnome. Also, right before 7.2-RELEASE is > probably > not the best time as that's when things are most hectic. Right /after/ > 7.2-RELEASE would be better > > I think your basic idea of snapshotting the ports tree at regular intervals > and building a self-consistent group of desktop related applications is a > pretty good one actually. You need to work a bit on the details -- for > instance, is it worthwhile rebuilding (say) the X libraries if there have > been no changes to them since the previous snapshot? Also, I'd take a good > look at exactly how the PC-BSD and Desktop-BSD groups deal with this > problem. > > Cheers, > > Matthew > All your points and your encouragement taken on board, thank you. I have a bit of spare time next week so I am going to work on this then thanks Chris
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