Subject: Re: pkgchk (was Re: today's openssh version 3.7)
To: Chris Wareham <chris.wareham@iosystems.co.uk>
From: Sean Davis <dive@endersgame.net>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 09/19/2003 06:44:33
On Fri, Sep 19, 2003 at 09:28:16AM +0100, Chris Wareham wrote:
> Sean Davis wrote:
> >On Thu, Sep 18, 2003 at 09:45:38AM -0700, Bruce J.A. Nourish wrote:
> >
> >>On Thu, Sep 18, 2003 at 12:23:21PM -0400, William Allen Simpson wrote:
> >>
> >>>I'm suggesting automated fetching and installation of binaries, on the 
> >>>order of (similar to other projects):
> >>> pkg_update
> >>> pkg_upgrade
> >>
> >>pkgtools/pkgchk
> >
> >
> >I like pkgchk, but the problem I have with it is twofold:
> >
> >1) if one build dies, it gives up, often leaving tons of packages
> >   uninstalled, with no clear way of knowing what it deinstalled (and thus
> >   what you need to redo by hand)
> >2) it has the tendency to rebuild things many times. The last time I ran
> >   pkg_chk -au, I think I ended up building mozilla something like three or
> >   four times. I have > 400 packages installed, and mozilla as we all know
> >   depends on about a million other things, but its still very time 
> >   consuming
> >   to build over and over on a 533mhz celeron. I think this is a problem in
> >   make update, not pkgchk, but it manifests itself in pkgchk.
> >
> >
> 
> If pkg_chk dies, then it leaves behind a file called .DDIR (if memory
> serves) in the working directory of the package it was updating. This
> lists the packages that would have been reinstalled after the current
> one was updated. In fact, if you fix the problem that caused the build
> failure and issue "make update" then all the packages listed in .DDIR
> will also be rebuilt.

Yes, the problem is that if you forget to make a copy of .DDIR somewhere and
do a make clean, you lose all that information.

> Making pkg_chk more intelligent by constructing a tree of dependencies
> would be nice, and there is another package tool that constructs such a
> dependency tree. If someone has the time to merge the necessary bits
> into pkg_chk that would be great. Findind someone with the time to do
> the work is the problem ...

Yeah. I'm about to start working on something completely different, so I
doubt I'd have the free time...

-Sean

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