From owner-freebsd-newbies Fri Jul 3 05:09:27 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id FAA18279 for freebsd-newbies-outgoing; Fri, 3 Jul 1998 05:09:27 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from mrelay.jrc.it (mrelay.jrc.it [139.191.1.65]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id FAA18265; Fri, 3 Jul 1998 05:09:19 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from nick.hibma@jrc.it) Received: from elect8 (elect8.jrc.it [139.191.71.152]) by mrelay.jrc.it (LMC5688) with SMTP id OAA00078; Fri, 3 Jul 1998 14:09:16 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 1998 14:02:02 +0200 (MET DST) From: Nick Hibma X-Sender: n_hibma@elect8 Reply-To: Nick Hibma To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG, current@FreeBSD.ORG, stable@FreeBSD.ORG, newbies@FreeBSD.ORG, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: PKGINFO statistics Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org In short, it would be appreciated if you could execute the command below on your FreeBSD box. It is harmless. /usr/sbin/pkg_info -aI | \ /usr/bin/mail -s "PKGINFO `hostname`" \ nick.hibma@jrc.it (this command should be all on one line, like: /usr/bin/pkg_info -aI | mail -s "PKGINFO `hostname`" nick.hibma@jrc.it The `hostname` in the subject is there to be able to filter out duplicates but is not required at all, in case you want to send it anonymously. It sends me a list of all the packages you have installed on the machine you execute the command on. Reason to do this: In a discussion the idea came up to see if profiles for the usage of packages could be found. If a large number of these pkg_info lists are retrieved we can try to find relations between each two installed packages. This could be used to offer predefined profiles to the user when installing packages. This avoids the user to having to wade through the entire list of packages when deciding what to install. The directory structure present in the /usr/ports directory already provides a means to do this but this could be improved upon. See for a more elaborate discussion the message below. Thanks for your help and my apologies for the cross posting. Please note that I am not subscribed to any of the mailing lists (except hackers) and any flames should be sent to my personal address only. I will collect all the flames and post a digest. :-) Nick Hibma ======== >From nick.hibma@jrc.it Fri Jul 3 13:34:37 1998 Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 19:01:14 +0200 (MET DST) From: Nick Hibma To: Garance A Drosihn Cc: FreeBSD hackers mailing list Subject: Re: 2.2.6 CD-ROM : Package dependencies up the creek ? > > That is true, but the idea of profiles and a more copious choice of > > what you might want to install is not a bad idea either I think. > > I think it is a "slippery slope", as each of us has a different > collection of packages which we feel are important for machines > once we have them setup as a production service. If we start down > this path, we will probably end up just reorganizing the ports list, > whereas what I'm hoping for is a very short list of packages which > are displayed during the initial install time. Let's separate between two different issues. One, the more important and urgent one: your point of creating a list of packages which should be optional but most probably necessary on a newly installed system. You mention bash as an example, perl5 is another one. Add a tick box in one of the installation menus and add the packages to the CD and you are done. The more room on the CD the more packages you can add to that list if you like. The idea of profiles is the other one and as you say, it is a slippery slope. Most people install the operating system for the first time to try and if they have the feeling that they are being coached through the process and been given choices that they can easily understand, they'll probably have a better feeling about what is happening to them. Profiles you can see as different views on the database of packages available. You can already see this if you look at the way the packages are structured now. The point is that you can select a number of profiles that suite you. They might overlap, for example web, mail and software development, but you have a preselection of packages which should fullfill most your intended uses. Enhancing the profiles with relations makes it even more sexy. For example, installing MSQL on a development system that also has perl installed could trigger the adding perl5-msql. Having selected X and ghostscript makes it invitable to install ghostview as well. An idea is to collect a lot of pkg_info -aI lists and see if you can use statistics to guess what someone might want to install as well. Taking into account the available disk space and using the statistical analysis to rank the automatically added packages would keep the thing from installing too many things. REQUEST: I hereby post a request for pkg_info -aI listings of FBSD machines. Please add in the subject PKGINFO. That makes the message more of an object that _just_knows_ which mail folder to go to. The following should do: pkg_info -aI | mail -s "PKGINFO `hostname`" nick.hibma@jrc.it should do the trick. And, someone has said this (I cannot remember his name), there should be a step in between the installation of the base system (O sys and basic functionality /usr/bin and packages) and the installation of the packages through selection/profiles/whatever. In contrast to MicroDollar there is a difference between the operating system and the user interface. A remark about the fact that the operating system and base functionality (including the item above, the packages on CD 1) has been completely installed and that he now can continue with the installation of added functionality if he wishes to do so, should be added. To avoid the problem Garance had when installing FreeBSD (supposedly nuking his fresh installation during the installation of XFree) maybe some consolidation stage should be added (reboot) after dumping a README on what to do next to the screen/to more. Shouldn't we force a reboot to make sure we run off a decent medium (common guys, one reboot is not the end of the world! :-) Is it at all possible to install XFree at that stage, because of the lack of swap and RO /usr partition? > I would expect most shells will be on this "short list". As part of the > install process the user going to be asked to create some personal ID's, Account creation is a good one as well for the initial setup phase. At least you can log in as user root with a password or as someone else. It makes it feel more like home instead of a black hole. > shell I "need". Obviously I can get by using other shells, but it > only takes about five minutes before I start missing shell features > which I'm pretty used to. The cursor jumping all over the place when pressing tab, very annoying, yes. :-) Someone who has the CD1 handy should tell us how much space is left there before we embark on listing all our favourite toys. 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