Bruce Dubbs wrote: > The problem is that there are several package management schemes and > they are generally incompatible. They are also targeted towards binary > installs. > > When discussing PM, we first need to agree on the goals. What are we > trying to do with it? Install an upgraded package transparently? Keep > track of files on an LFS/BLFS system? Uninstall a package? The only > practical way I can see for doing any of that is to have a separate > application do the work. At that point we are fundamentally not doing > it "from Scratch" any more. It may as well be Gentoo. > I think there is a spectrum of possibilities with the current LFS/BLFS at one end and Gentoo at the other. Gentoo is for someone who, say, wants to run a MediaWiki server and tells Gentoo "I want PHP" and Gentoo responds with a list of 200 ebuilds that are needed to achieve that. The person may have some input into the process like choosing Postgres instead of MySQL in the USE flags, but once that's done the build and any upgrades are fully automated, and require relatively little thought from the user--unless he likes to start tweaking things (and that may lead him to consider LFS :-).
The current LFS/BLFS instead requires that the user follow a manual procedure to arrive at an equivalent, hopefully better result. The base system is essentially dictated by the book, while the BLFS packages require knowledge or research into what is to be built (although someone could build everything blindly). As I see it, the issues begin when package upgrades are released and the user wants to install them. Unless he scripted the original build and kept a record of the installed files, he may be reluctant to apply the upgrade. And of course, some packages cascade onto others. And if glibc has to be rebuilt, the only recommended solution is to rebuild *everything* from the beginning. Some editors and community members obviously don't mind rebuilding everything every three months or more often (and must have developed scripts to assist in that task), but I suspect other LFS users upgrade a few top level, daily use packages often and leave the rest alone until really necessary. At that point, I think a minimal PM that at least allows review of what is about to be installed (outside of the build tree) and ideally provides a means to undo a faulty installation (even if manually) would allay the fears of updating a package that may be critical to the user's system, but doesn't get much of his attention. Joe -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/blfs-dev FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page
