From owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Aug 18 00:28:12 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: ports@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9B71416A41F for ; Thu, 18 Aug 2005 00:28:12 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from benlutz@datacomm.ch) Received: from maxlor.mine.nu (c-213-160-32-54.customer.ggaweb.ch [213.160.32.54]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1768643D48 for ; Thu, 18 Aug 2005 00:28:12 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from benlutz@datacomm.ch) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by maxlor.mine.nu (Postfix) with ESMTP id DC1E340F; Thu, 18 Aug 2005 02:28:10 +0200 (CEST) Received: from maxlor.mine.nu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (midgard [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 41595-01; Thu, 18 Aug 2005 02:28:09 +0200 (CEST) Received: from [10.0.0.23] (mini.intranet [10.0.0.23]) by maxlor.mine.nu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 550CA6F; Thu, 18 Aug 2005 02:28:09 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <4303D614.2090702@datacomm.ch> Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 02:28:04 +0200 From: Benjamin Lutz User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6 (Macintosh/20050716) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Brooks Davis References: <20050817195839.GA22027@odin.ac.hmc.edu> <4303CF35.400@datacomm.ch> <20050818001258.GA14367@odin.ac.hmc.edu> In-Reply-To: <20050818001258.GA14367@odin.ac.hmc.edu> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.92.0.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="------------enig1B5DEB161D95C0E6120F80C3" X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at maxlor.mine.nu Cc: ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: prebuild sanity checks X-BeenThere: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting software to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 00:28:12 -0000 This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 2440 and 3156) --------------enig1B5DEB161D95C0E6120F80C3 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>>Another option might be a new variable (or variables) that ports that >>>tend to break spectacularly and unobviously can set like: >>> >>>BUILD_DEVS= null zero >> >>As a potential user of such a variable, I wonder how I'm supposed to >>figure out which basic system facilities are required by a given piece >>of software. > > Either by having it fail and debugging it or by doing a build with one > of the common culprates missing from devfs. In theory it would see that > you could do a periodic sweep using the package cluster. I can't test every possible environment as a ports maintainer. I can't even test every possible standard FreeBSD release. If there's just 10 different things that are being tested for, the cluster would have to test for each of them in turn - sounds like quite a bit of work with 13000 ports. >>I think the right thing to do here would be to have the software react >>more sensibly to such a problem, ie bail out with an error message. In >>other words: have the people upstream change their software. > > In theory yes. In practice, I'm sure a lot of software authors won't > care about supporting this environment. True. As a ports maintainer, I'm afraid to say, neither do I. I can see the value of this though. I've set up a couple of jails too, I know how annoying it can be to track down dependencies. Why not start collecting data on which software needs which system facilities outside the ports system? Set up a website with a public database/wiki? That way, non-FreeBSD users would be helped too. Cheers Benjamin --------------enig1B5DEB161D95C0E6120F80C3 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (Darwin) iD8DBQFDA9YXgShs4qbRdeQRAhQXAKCERH4Bs4W0PLbvPoVBoNNe0CC0kgCgkdEr YPzZ6AWBjC6zCH9V3XeQ6x0= =Yrd9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------enig1B5DEB161D95C0E6120F80C3--