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Date:      Wed, 25 Sep 2002 17:17:21 +0200
From:      Philip Paeps <philip@paeps.cx>
To:        freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: HEADSUP:  gzip packages on FreeBSD 4-STABLE
Message-ID:  <20020925151721.GA8835@juno.home.paeps.cx>
In-Reply-To: <200209241542.g8OFgXPE006612@intruder.bmah.org>
References:  <200209241542.g8OFgXPE006612@intruder.bmah.org>

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On 2002-09-24 08:42:33 (-0700), Bruce A. Mah <bmah@freebsd.org> wrote:
> Due to some difficulties encountered while testing bzip2 packages for
> FreeBSD 4.7-RC1, the Release Engineering team (with agreement from the Port
> Manager team) has decided to revert back to gzip packages, at least for the
> remaining 4.7-RC snapshots and 4.7-RELEASE.

Would it not be more preferable to have support for both gzip and bzip2
packages?  Perhaps with a command-line switch (-g, -b) pkg_add could be told
to look for a different kind of compression.

For now, I agree, with all the 'older' systems around, making packages should
default to gzip, but a flag or an option in make.conf to select the
compression shouldn't hurt much.

Gradually, things could move forward into a bzip2-only era...

> As a side effect, this will once again allow older FreeBSD installations to
> read recently-generated packages, although the use of such packages is not
> officially supported.

That's a good idea.  I think a lot of people - particularly those tracking
-STABLE and not reading the list (tsk...) - were quite surprised when pkg_add
stopped working (I certainly was, and I've been subscribed to the list for a
while, just not reading religiously).

> Three things will happen, over the next few days, roughly in this order:
> 
> 1.  A bsd.port.mk change to make building gzip packages once again the
>     default on 4-STABLE.

Perhaps add the make.conf setting or compile-time flag for bzip2, for those
who like the extra compression etc?

> 2.  Partial back-out of changes to pkg_* on 4-STABLE to make gzip the
>     default compression scheme for package creation and installation.

Sounds good, at some point perhaps -g/-b switches could be added?  I've not
looked at the code, I don't know how difficult it would be to do?  I think
that having the option to use both methods - defaulting to gzip so as not to
confuse people - would be a nice bonus.

> 3.  Upload of a gzip package set for 4-STABLE to the FTP servers,
>     which will most likely also be the package set for 4.7-RC2 (at
>     least for i386).

That's a good idea.

> In the middle of this transition, there may be a few mismatches between what
> compression formats are provided and expected by different parts of the
> package system, thus, this heads-up notice.  We'll do our best to keep
> you-all informed on progress.  Apologies for any inconvenience this
> (un)change causes.

You are forgiven :-)

 - Philip

-- 
Philip Paeps                                          Please don't CC me, I am
philip@paeps.cx                                       subscribed to the list.

  BOFH Excuse #330:
    quantum decoherence

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