Martin 'MC' Brown wrote:
This is standard functionality in nearly all package-managed Linux distributions, but the only way I know of for keeping up to date in this way with Solaris is to pay for full support, and then AFAIK it is limited to patches, rather than downloading and installing an updated package.
Patching an existing package is updates everything that needs to be updated. It leaves the system with the same binaries in the package as you would have if you had installed the new package. This is what happens for Solaris updates in fact, Solaris 10 Update 1 will have Solaris 10 with all patches applied to it, and also any additional packages added.
The VERSION string in the pkginfo file for Solaris packages is constant for that version of solaris (all updates have the same version). The pkginfo file in /var/sadm/pkg/<pkg> will then contain info on what patches are applied and what patches have been applied but removed etc. Thats how solaris defines the system, you have a set of packages and a set of patches. pkg-get on the other hand relies only on the version string so it increments.
Where this hits a problem is when open source projects tie themselves to a version number. While you can have say the binaries of Perl 8.0.5 installed the pkginfo may show Perl 8.0.4 + a patch installed.
The way to check that your solaris system is up to date is to run 'smpatch analyze'. That will tell you what patches you are missing and smpatch add will install them. Similarly pkg-get -u will upgrade your blastwave/sunfreeware binaries.
As for paying. smpatch analyze will get you the latest security fixes even if you dont pay for a contract. When Solaris 10 Update 1 comes out you can upgrade to it for free and get the other patches that way. Thats the support you get for free.
What paying for support gets you is access to these patches more quickly. smpatch (or the sun updte manager gui) will be able to download them once they are availble and you dont need to wait for the next update.
Of couse with opensolaris you get the code every couple of weeks so you get to see the latest technology before the patches are availble for s10.
Different approaches suit different people. If you want bleeding edge use solaris express and opensolaris. If you want stable and latest patches then pay for the contract. If you just want the OS and are happy to wait for free updates then you can do that too.
I've just noticed Dennis's post about a pkg-get gui. That would be great. What would be really cool is if somehow it could interact with the sun update manager so that S10 users could have a single gui to manage their sun patches and pkg-get packages.
Cheers, ~Al _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
