Shawn Walker wrote: > Jack Schwartz wrote: >> Hi Shawn. >> >> On 07/30/09 11:19, Shawn Walker wrote: >>> Dave Miner wrote: >>>> Shawn Walker wrote: >>>>> SVR4 package support is fairly minimal at the moment, and is >>>>> deprecated or obsolete (not sure of the 'official' terminology). >>>>> Why even support it at this point? >>>>> >>>> >>>> Because that's the format some drivers are available in. Yes, we >>>> have all sorts of ISV/IHV engineering teams fired up to get them >>>> converted to IPS, but I'm favoring adoption over purity. >> Yes, it will be easier for users to get started with OpenSolaris if >> their rare controller card's driver can be loaded without them having >> to find an IPS-packaged version of it. >> >> If their package behaves and has only new files and doesn't overwrite >> system files, I believe there should be no problems. >>> >>> I figured as much, but it isn't a panacea. Is there going to be an >>> escape hatch for users stuck with broken SVR4 packages? >> We can check each file in the package being added, and display a >> warning if that file already exists on the system. Does this sound >> reasonable? > > That would assuage my fears greatly. There's really no protection in > place to keep SVR4 packages from butchering files already on the system. >
SVR4 pkgadd will already tell you that the files are installed and let you choose to continue. Don't write code to replicate that. > However, it still leaves users with the issue that they may be stuck > with a driver that won't be installable regardless of whether or not the > check succeeds because of the architectural changes that were made in > the OpenSolaris 200x releases. > > So is there going to be some sort of warning to users that this is not > guaranteed to work correctly? > There's no reason to scare them unduly. > My fear is that if you market this as a stable, supported option, that > some driver providers may never provide the newer packages or that they > will be subtly broken and users will never know. The usage of SVR4 > driver packages with an ips system is a band-aid at solution at best. > Yes, it's a band-aid. The way to convince driver writers to update isn't to shoot ourselves in the foot, though; ending up with zero OpenSolaris users of their hardware won't help our cause. Remember that we're mostly fighting uphill for this support. Offering them a better connection to their users, a potentially streamlined distribution via our repositories, etc. ought to be more effective. > I realise that not all packages are created equal, and some will work > perfectly without any issues, but I doubt that is true of all packages. > There's also the issue of zones and how these SVR4 packages won't be > accounted for with them when it comes to driver-related utilities (as > far as I know, you might want to consult Dan Price, et al.). > Zones don't run drivers, and an IPS-based zone won't even try to install non-IPS content. What's your real concern here? Dave
