On Wed, 22 Jun 2005, Cameron Patrick wrote:

> Pkgsrc is very nice for building packages from source.  The binary
> packages are a not so good; a lot of packages are uninstallable from
> binaries.  Binary packages get removed from the archive when security
> flaws are found, but fixed ones tend not to be uploaded in their
> place.

This problem should be fixed now for upcoming branches. We didn't have a
policy before. But now see:

http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-pkg/2005/05/06/0032.html

And see the updated "How to use binary packages" section in the pkgsrc
Guide.

Also, I believe new packages will be uploaded too so you aren't required
to use the vulnerable packages. If not, please complain!

>  Often packages depend on others which are not freely
> distributable in binary form.

I fixed xine. As you find others please report them so this can be
improved.

>  (In some cases the packages can be
> configured to disable these dependencies at the cost of reducing
> functionality.  IMHO there should be some mechanism to disable these
> dependencies on the bulk-builds.)

I think that the packages should not depend on a non-free dependency in
the first place.

> Using pkg_add to install binary packages over the network is also a
> bit fiddly.  It doesn't provide any kind of progress indicator and the
> downloaded packages aren't cached anywhere.  This sucks for large
> packages or when you have less than 100mbit to the packages mirror :-)
> If only pkg_add was as nice as apt-get ...

That would be good. The main strength of apt-get is that it uses a
pregenerated list of available packages with all needed metadata about
dependencies, features provided, etc. I started created a similar
"available" file several months ago, but never got around to creating an
interface to use it. (If anyone is interested in creating the interface to
use the "available" file let me know!)

Also, I have heard again recently that a couple different developers are
working on new approaches for installing/updating packages.

 Jeremy C. Reed

 	  	 	 BSD News, BSD tutorials, BSD links
	  	 	 http://www.bsdnewsletter.com/