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Date:      Wed, 20 Apr 2016 11:57:47 -0400
From:      Paul Mather <paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
To:        Slawa Olhovchenkov <slw@zxy.spb.ru>
Cc:        freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: [CFT] packaging the base system with pkg(8)
Message-ID:  <F78F38A1-F1A0-48BF-B7A3-37BB22A95549@gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
In-Reply-To: <20160420145416.GB67390@zxy.spb.ru>
References:  <mailman.1222.1461151175.46920.freebsd-current@freebsd.org> <5DBC1E44-E562-4A5B-9DD9-47C1C62AFB9D@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> <20160420145416.GB67390@zxy.spb.ru>

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On Apr 20, 2016, at 10:54 AM, Slawa Olhovchenkov <slw@zxy.spb.ru> wrote:

>> A packaged base is just another way of describing the state of the
>> system.  People on mailing lists will still be able to help people
>> fix their problems, but they'll just use different information to
>> pinpoint the precise components affected.
>=20
> How identify this systems? By 800-line lists of package versions?


In my experience, troubleshooting usually proceeds from the description =
of the symptoms.  So, if someone says, "I just updated and Sendmail has =
stopped sending e-mails," or "I just updated and I can no longer SSH =
into my system," then the logical question is to ask what versions of =
the packages they're running that pertain to those binaries.  In other =
words, you start at the symptom and work outwards from there.  In my =
experience, it's not necessary to have an exact inventory of a system to =
be able to solve a problem with it.

A tool like pkg makes it easy to know which package is associated with a =
given file and also which packages that package depends upon and which =
are dependencies of it.  So, pkg makes it relatively painless to zoom in =
or out from a given symptom (i.e., binary or library that might have =
changed).  I don't believe this is possible in the current FreeBSD =
setup.  This is a huge gain in functionality.

Cheers,

Paul.




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