Re: ANN: Availability of pkg(8)-capable pkgsrc

["Thomas Mueller" <mueller6724%bellsouth.net@localhost>]

from John Marino:

> I am assuming anyone reading knows that pkg(8) is the binary package
> management tool for the FreeBSD ports collection and it replaces all the
> native pkg_* tool functionality. [1][2][3]

> Pierry Pronchery (Khorben) gave a presentation about the feasibility of
> using "pkg-ng" with pkgsrc at pkgsrcCon 2015 [4].  He followed that up with
> bringing pkg(8) to pkgsrc [5].  Without the framework support, that import was
> useless. I don't know how the presentation was received (apparently not with
> much enthusiasm) as Pierre ceased his initial work.   His branch at EdgeBSD
> was less than 5% complete by my estimation.

> I have mostly completed his work [6].  The referenced link is pkgsrc with an
> overlay and it's automatically updated every 6 hours.  Anyone that desires to
> use the pkg(8) manager, especially those looking to create repositories for
> distribution, needs to switch to this version of pkgsrc, at least until pkg(8)
> is completely supported in pkgsrc itself.

> The following systems (OPSYS) should work now:
>   * FreeBSD
>   * DragonFly
>   * NetBSD

> These systems (OPSYS) are untested but may work:
>   * OpenBSD
>   * MirBSD
>   * Bitrig
>   * Linux

> This system (OPSYS) might work, probably doesn't, support planned:
>   * SunOS

> Any other OPSYS will not work and pkg(8) is limited to ELF-based systems.

> Getting a functional pkg(8) based system is straight-forward on non-NetBSD
> platforms by using the standard bootstrap script.  It's slightly more involved
> for NetBSD systems.  The instructions for both cases are located at the top
> README file:

> https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jrmarino/pkgsrc-synth/master/README

> I would love to see people try to use this variant of pkgsrc and report back
> any non-functionality.

I have some NetBSD installations, now idle pending update, following a crash that corrupted the GPT partition table, though I subsequently seem to have recovered all data.

Can this pkg(8)-capable pkgsrc be used on an installed system with many packages, or do I need to clean everything first?

Can synth be used in place of pkg_rolling-replace to update installed packages?

Can I download through "git clone" rather than the master.zip, and would I update by "git pull"?  I could do that from either FreeBSD or NetBSD.

I have substantial experience with pkg on FreeBSD, where I build packages through FreeBSD ports.

I just looked in pkgtools and sysutils categories through the github web interface, and synth was not there.

Tom