Subject: Re: pkgsrc and tcsh
To: None <port-sparc@netbsd.org>
From: Greg A. Woods <woods@weird.com>
List: port-sparc
Date: 05/26/2002 19:19:57
[ On Sunday, May 26, 2002 at 15:28:38 (-0700), Ben Cottrell wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: pkgsrc and tcsh 
>
> Why do so many pieces of software suffer from the misconception that
> it is even remotely okay to install stuff in the system directories???

There is no misconception if you assume the user is smart enough to use
a software management system of some sort.  Even a trivial manifest list
of installed packages lets you re-create the situation you were in
before an upgrade provided you keep it sorted in the order you did the
original installs in.

Indeed from a user and support perspective it's best to have everything
all installed in one consistent hierarchy.

Ideally of course you have a full package management system that among
other things knows about every file in every package, including all the
system "packages" and it keeps you from accidentally clobbering
something important while at the same time allowing you to replace any
given package (or upgrade the system) and still return your system to
the approximate state it was in before the change.

And of course in NetBSD we have the pkg_install software and pkgsrc, and
it's only a matter of creating system packages to finish off the whole
picture!  ;-)

(and you can do that today -- it's just not automatic)

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;  <gwoods@acm.org>;  <g.a.woods@ieee.org>;  <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; VE3TCP; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>