segv@netctl.net wrote:

>On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 20:01:22 +0530
>Moinak Ghosh <Moinak.Ghosh@Sun.COM> wrote:
>
>>choice. I am a newbie to Pkgsrc and am thinking of using Pkgsrc to 
>>package the entire
>>OpenSolaris base distribution as well as use the other open-source 
>>packages. Is this
>>advisable or even feasible ? Any suggestions ?
>>    
>>
>
>pkgsrc is mainly designed for building and installing 3rd party software. So
>you first install OpenSolaris, which uses its native packaging system, then you
>use pkgsrc to build or install other software like Gnome, Firefox, etc.
>
>Base operating system is seperate from pkgsrc. I'm not sure how you could use
>pkgsrc to install Solaris core software like kernel, drivers and X11 and system
>libraries. However Sun have to realise that bundling bloat like Gnome with the
>base system sucks. You could rip out non-essential packages (Gtk, Gnome,
>Mozilla, StarOffice, etc) and provide them via pkgsrc.
>  
>
   I guess I did not clarify a few points in my earlier email. 
OpenSolaris is not a distribution by itself. It is
   just the Solaris OS and utilities source base available as a 
buildable archive. As such it does not include
   any default packaging framework.

   OpenSolaris thus does not include any third-party source code. What 
you are referring to here is
   actually Solaris Express which is SUN's official distribution built 
on the OpenSolaris source base. SUN
   has decided to have GNOME as the default desktop.

   But any other OpenSolaris distro like BeleniX is free to take their 
own decisions and software selection.
   In fact I use Xfce 4.2 as the default desktop in BeleniX.

   Since OpenSolaris does not have any default packaging mechanism I 
need to select one. I wish to have
   something feature packed and modern.

   From my beginner's understanding I see that when I have a harddisk 
installer with support for packages
   there should not be any hurdle in having the OpenSolaris base 
binaries in the form of Pkgsrc packages.
   Anyway the installer has to boot BeleniX off a cd and dump packages 
to harddisk. Booting off a cd is
   already there as BeleniX is currently a LiveCD.

Regards,
Moinak.