Date: 24 Sep 1999 18:08:15 -0400 From: Rajappa Iyer <rsi@panix.com> To: Chris Piazza <cpiazza@home.net> Cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com>, Bill Fumerola <billf@jade.chc-chimes.com>, Jaakko Salomaa <jsalomaa@saunalahti.fi>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: A new package fetching utility, pkg_get Message-ID: <199909242208.SAA06980@panix.com> References: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9909241440450.71250-100000@jade.chc-chimes.com> <6939.938202872@localhost> <19990924140357.A71450@norn.ca.eu.org>
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Chris Piazza <cpiazza@home.net> writes:
> On Fri, Sep 24, 1999 at 12:54:32PM -0700, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
> > > Most of what you've shown can be accomplished with 'pkg_add -r' and
> > > some enviromental variables.
> >
> > In its current incarnation, that's pretty much true. However, we also
> > intend to throw feature upon feature request onto his pile until
> > Jaakko ends up reproducing the Debian package manager for us! :-)
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Have you actually used that? If so, and you want to reproduce it,
> I question your sanity.
I completely agree!! Debian's package manager is one of the most
infuriatingly buggy piece of software that I've ever used.
1. It does a terrible job at tracking dependencies, IMHO. If you
install packages A, B and C at the same time and A depends on C,
it's not smart enough to install C first. pkg_order | tsort should
do the job, one would presume.
2. It does an even more terrible job at fetching dependencies. Try
installing a complex set of programs and files (e.g. gnome) and see
how many individual components you have to fetch. Contrast with
"cd /usr/ports/x11/gnome; make install".
3. (This is more of a packaging issue) I personally cannot abide by
the notion that when you install a library, the header files are
not installed.
4. The number of times that I've had a random bug in the
{pre|post}{install|remove} scripts essentially render the system
unupgradeable is not funny. I have had to go and physically remove
some files and edit the package database by hand to get the system
back to some sane state.
Now one can argue that many of the defects are really cosmetic and
many are packaging issues, but I feel that by hacking up a Debian
replacement is an inferior solution to leveraging the current (elegant
and wonderful) ports mechanism that we have. I personally would
rather see an option added to the ports mechanism, which lets you
fetch binary, compiled packages instead of source tarballs and still
do: "cd /usr/ports/x11/gnome; make -DUSE_BINARY_PACKAGES install"
Thanks,
Rajappa
--
<rsi@panix.com> a.k.a. Rajappa Iyer. New York, New York.
We're too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet.
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