Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 17:56:11 -0600 (CST) From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [current] Re: Confusing error messages from shell image activation Message-ID: <14901.27035.233431.111206@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <20001211112908.B39546@peorth.iteration.net> References: <14898.33404.356173.963351@guru.mired.org> <14898.31393.228926.763711@guru.mired.org> <Pine.BSF.4.21.0012091347030.88984-100000@turtle.looksharp.net> <200012100904.CAA27546@harmony.village.org> <3A336781.94E1646@newsguy.com> <14899.41809.754369.259894@guru.mired.org> <200012101557.KAA29588@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> <14899.43958.622675.847234@guru.mired.org> <20001210120840.C38697@vger.bsdhome.com> <14900.26674.605585.357915@trooper.velocet.net> <20001211112908.B39546@peorth.iteration.net>
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Michael C . Wu <keichii@iteration.net> types:
> I know I should not jump into this bikeshed. But IMHO, whereever
> we have our packages install to, we should also place
> our ports metadata (/var/db/pkg) and the ports skeleton in the
> same place, preferably a mountpoint. This allow me to switch
> between different sets of installation with ease. (No, please
> do not tell me to change PREFIX and mv /usr/local /usr/local.bak)
> With this setup, I can rm -rf <whatever place this goes>, and
> have a clean system again. For the ports developers, we can
> switch between configurations without the need for chroots or
> jails taking up disk space.
Ok, I can see wanting that. And I can see how it would be handy for
ports developers. But my instant reaction was "yuch". The reason for
that is that, unlike the contents of ${PREFIX}, the contents of the
ports metadata is *not* generally recreatable from the /usr/ports
tree. This means it's more precious, and you might want to back it up
more frequently, etc.
While some method for ports developers to move the metadata (say an
environment variable) should be provided, I think the above is a good
reason for leaving the default as is.
BTW, pkg_add (at least) honors the environment variable PKG_DBDIR to
set the location of the ports metadata directory. Is there some reason
you can't just set that to /usr/local/etc/db/pkg or some such?
Final comment - I wish more ports developers *would* set PREFIX.
<mike
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