Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2002 15:30:42 +0100 (BST) From: Mark Valentine <mark@thuvia.demon.co.uk> To: drosih@rpi.edu (Garance A Drosihn), Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com>, Dan Moschuk <dan@freebsd.org> Cc: arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Package system flaws? Message-ID: <200207081430.g68EUgoZ062947@dotar.thuvia.org> In-Reply-To: Garance A Drosihn's message of Jul 8, 2:04am
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> From: drosih@rpi.edu (Garance A Drosihn)
> Date: Mon 8 Jul, 2002
> Subject: Re: Package system flaws?
> I do find the ports collection one of the most useful things in
> the freebsd community, but the more comfortable you get with
> depending on it, the more you see little cracks where various
> problems crop up -- over and over again.
Indeed the system is very useful already. But here are my main gripes
anyway...
1. Packages install to /usr/local by default; however, they do not
(and cannot) follow my long-standing (since 4.2BSD) cross-platform
administrative policies for /usr/local. In fact, just attempting
a package install on those systems generally screws up the
permissions on /usr/local fatally.
The next generation system should install to /usr/pkg or /opt or
whatever.
(Policy differences here: my /usr/local is generally administered
by group "staff", not user "root"; I put in a bit of effort to
generally _not_ require the co-existence of multiple versions of
a package - a lot of the ports patches are there to accomplish just
this, renaming libraries and data directories - I don't want it).
2. I'd like to see improved support for building/installing packages
as non-root. Installing as root should only be necessary if local
policy requires it, or if there are set[ug]id components to install
(or similar permission requirements). Even in the latter case it
would be nice if the install created a simple script to run as root
to fix up the permissions.
I especially don't like having to build ports as root (I consider
bsd.port.mk unauditable, and I know a thing or two about make(1)).
3. There's no way to have pkg_add -r use a local package cache so
that only the first install needs to fetch the package _and its
dependencies_ over the Internet (see Cygwin's setup.exe for an
example of how this can be done reasonably well).
I went to add this feature and my stumbling block was that pkg_add
doesn't know the versioned name of the package archive to store
(but only for the primary package, the dependencies are fine).
That's to say that "pkg_add -r XFree86" should fetch and store (if
necessary) "XFree86-4.2.0_1,1.tgz" and its dependencies; alternatively,
"pkg_add -r XFree86-4.2.0_1,1.tgz" should do the right thing.
Currently, to install a package on multiple systems, I have to jump
through hoops to get the package and its dependencies into my local
package area.
> Separate from that, one thing I think we need is some mechanism
> which makes certain that the generated package-list for a port
> is exactly correct.
I like your idea for creating packages from a chroot'd area, though
I'd probably prefer this to be an optional testing feature than the
default method (but yes, nobody would use it then...).
Cheers,
Mark.
--
Mark Valentine, Thuvia Labs <mark@thuvia.co.uk> <http://www.thuvia.co.uk>;
"Tigers will do ANYTHING for a tuna fish sandwich." Mark Valentine uses
"We're kind of stupid that way." *munch* *munch* and endorses FreeBSD
-- <http://www.calvinandhobbes.com>; <http://www.freebsd.org>;
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