Re: apt-get

[Emiel Kollof <coolvibe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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On Tuesday 01 June 2004 00:04, Bill Huey wrote:

> Contrast this with the 20 minutes it takes for my cable modem to download
> and install the packages with other folks using ports system and it's
> really inarguable as to what's better for package updating. With the
> constant CVS updates I get from KDE, it's really kind of impossible to
> imagine this with with a compile-only ports system. The frequency and size
> of the changes make it nearly impossible for folks without a compile farm
> to update these packages at that rate.
>
> You still have a somewhat hackish dependency debugger in *BSD packaging
> systems. You have portupgrade, which only kind of resolves these dependency
> often leaving random stuff behind, while in contrast, I can full back out
> dpkgs and reinstall them at will. It maintains a DB of files installed
> in a package, permits file ownership querying, etc...
>
> It's a phenomenal system.

Apt may be nice for maintaining remote repositories of binary packages, but 
dpkg is really horrible. Mostly because the dpkg installation programs always 
try to second-guess the user, which is _really_ irritating and it isn't 
needed. It also shoves configuration management down your throat that most 
system admins (especially in the *BSD sphere) abhor. Of course such behavior 
can be bolted on, but it should never be required. When it's 4 am, and you 
want to automatically upgrade your binaries, the last thing one wants is for 
the package system to hang on some prompt waiting for input. Unattended 
operation is a must.

I think a compromise of wiring the BSD package tools pkg_* to apt might be a 
better solution. As far as I can see, apt is pretty package-system agnostic. 
Sure, BSD packages might not be perfect, but the format is simple, and the 
dependency "issues" are things that can be fixed.

I think an even better solution is to be able to "convert" a FreeBSD port to a 
dragonfly package (so you can still compile from source with ports), but to 
prefer some other method we still need to think of to easily build from 
source and slowly migrate away to it. Add on top that a system like apt can 
be easily adapted to it (or even some other system, it's nice to be 
flexible).

Don't forget that Simon has quite a writeup about what we could do for a 
packaging system. He's got it all thought off, including binary upgrades, 
building from source, tweaking build parameters, and a lot more. Grep through 
Justin's weblog for a link to the text (or maybe could just post it).

We're not linux, nor do we want to become one. If we wanted to be more like 
linux, most of us wouldn't be doing this and be using linux instead.

I'd like us to surpass ports and even apt.

Cheers,
Emiel
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