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Date:      Thu, 30 Aug 2012 10:47:57 -0500
From:      Mark Felder <feld@feld.me>
To:        Matt Burke <mattblists@icritical.com>
Cc:        ports@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: pkgng questions
Message-ID:  <op.wju157dx34t2sn@tech304>
In-Reply-To: <503F7C5A.4070001@icritical.com>
References:  <503F3B05.2040607@icritical.com> <op.wjuro5zv34t2sn@tech304> <503F7C5A.4070001@icritical.com>

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On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 09:44:42 -0500, Matt Burke <mattblists@icritical.com>  
wrote:

> On 08/30/12 13:01, Mark Felder wrote:
>> I think you're very confused about what pkgng is for. At this time,  
>> ports
>> are STILL the recommended way to install things and keep them up to  
>> date.
>
> Really? I think the last time I compiled X or a web browser (until using
> poudriere) was about 10 years ago.
>

Yes, but an example I gave in another thread reply is PHP. You can't  
pkg_install PHP right now and get Apache support. You HAVE to compile. The  
new pkg format is a step towards sub-packages so we can have a better  
public package repository that can fill 99% of everyone's needs.

>
> I had a couple of questions I wanted to answer -
>
> 1) How easy does it make keeping my desktop (currently releng/9.1 built
> with dtrace) up-to-date

It should be no different -- perhaps easier even.

> 2) How much easier will it be to maintain production and testing servers?
>
>

It will be no different. In fact, if you have a lot of servers but you  
have consistent, customized options across them all it will be EASIER to  
deploy and update packages with pkgng and poudriere.

> The answer has made me start downloading an OpenIndiana iso.
>

I don't see what OpenIndiana gains you...?


>
> I don't see any of the examples I gave listed, apart from nvidia-driver
>
>

Because the examples you gave have no issues with pkgng. If they're not in  
the public repository that's not a pkgng problem, it's a repository  
problem. You should be using pkg_* until the ports@ team has stated that  
the public pkgng repository is the one everyone should be using. pkgng 1.0  
has just been announced, but that just means the tool has reached  
maturity, not the package management of FreeBSD has instantly changed to  
pkgng.

>
> You're suggesting that I should upgrade an entire machine which may have
> proven itself over a period of years to be perfectly stable, just  
> because I
> need a small utility which really doesn't care about the man page typo
> which caused gettext-0.1.2_3 to change to gettext-0.1.2_4?
>

I'm not sure how you've come to this conclusion? If you have a poudriere  
server building packages and you only want to install one new utility,  
just tell poudriere to build only that utility and not build your entire  
list of packages. Yes, if that utility depends on gettext you'll find  
poudriere upgrading gettext and everything that depends on it. That's what  
poudriere does -- make sure that everything is built against whatever is  
current in the ports tree provided. But again, we're getting into the  
realm of mixing ports and packages which you should always take great  
caution when doing. You'll still be able to do that with pkgng.

>>> 4. How do I get poudiere to build against a local src/obj tree, or a  
>>> zfs
>>> snapshot of a pre-built jail, instead of 9.0-RELEASE?
>>
>> The poudriere man page has all the instructions needed to create jails  
>> of
>> any release version to be used for building packages.
>
> No, the man page doesn't mention anything about specifying where to pull
> the distribution from, only what method of access to use.

poudriere jail -c -v 8.3-RELEASE -a amd64 -j 8stable-amd64

This builds a jail from 8.3-RELEASE. If you want to update it to 8-STABLE  
build the 8-STABLE world and "make installworld  
DESTDIR=/path/to/poudriere/jail/named/8stable-amd64"

Does that help?

>
> I am confused. If pkg_* are removed, how is a person with a single  
> desktop
> machine (worst case, a netbook) expected to operate if they need a  
> specific
> port build? Are they to spend a week compiling 1000+ ports themselves in  
> a
> poudriere VM?
>
> Or is the flexibility of FreeBSD ports just not deemed to be useful to  
> the
> end user (or person unable to provide a dedicated any more?
>

Do not change what you are currently doing. Keep using pkg_* until the  
pkgng repositories are deemed to be the official package repositories of  
FreeBSD. If you really know what you're doing, you can still mix ports and  
packages with pkgng. Later when we have subpackages you probably will  
never need to do a "specific port build" because you want different  
options.

>
>>> 8. Is there a pkgng equivalent of 'ls -lt /var/db/pkg' without firing  
>>> up
>>> sqlite?
>>
>> Are you looking for the date column (not sure why that's useful as it  
>> can
>> change due to many things)? Doesn't "pkg info -a" suffice?
>
> 'ls -lt /var/db/pkg' will show me what packages were installed sorted by
> day. It is very useful on servers which aren't routinely upgraded to the
> latest and greatest untested versions
>

There has been discussion to backport creation /var/db/pkg entries and  
make it readonly. I understand your need because I use that too sometimes.

>
>>> 9. Why didn't pkg upgrade tell me it replaced my custom-built  
>>> packages? I'd
>>> have liked for it to not break stuff when /var/db/ports/*/options  
>>> differed
>>> from the options I can see pkgng keeps in its metadata...

You should know by now that mixing ports and packages is dangerous. And  
we've sort of covered earlier what's going on here.

I'm cutting the rest below this because the answer is redundant: pkgng is  
the new package tool and package format. It's compatible with everything  
you were doing before. It has much better features, dependency tracking,  
and it's very fast. It's going to be followed by some fantastic upgrades  
to the package management ecosystem that should eliminate the need for  
compiling custom packages for the majority of the users out there. Please,  
don't be afraid of it. Just be patient and wait for bapt and friends to  
tell everyone to stop using the old package repositories before you make  
any complaints about the current pkgng packages (or lack thereof).

FreeBSD's ports and package system has been incredibly flexible -- I  
agree. The goal is to preserve every bit of flexibility while at the same  
time providing a better public package repository. If you've found a  
serious bug that is breaking your ability to do something please contact  
the ports team and let them know -- they don't want to alienate power  
users.

It really just sounds to me like you jumped on the pkgng train too soon  
without realizing you were beta testing. Pkgng+poudriere is awesome and  
solves all sorts of problems I've had with the old system. I'm sure you'll  
see the value in some of these new changes soon enough :-)




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