Re: Question: wip, git, ssh and permissions

[Ottavio Caruso <ottavio2006-netbsd%yahoo.com@localhost>]

On 25 August 2015 at 14:15, Taylor R Campbell
<campbell+netbsd-tech-pkg%mumble.net@localhost> wrote:
>    Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2015 13:57:52 +0100
>    From: Ottavio Caruso <ottavio2006-netbsd%yahoo.com@localhost>
>
>    The pkgscr documentation is confusing and intimidating and scares even
>    the best-intentioned away.
>
>    If the official docs state that the standard place to dump your cvs is
>    /usr/pkgscr, then they put a dollar sign before the command line, I
>    might think that I am ok with using the non-root user to manipulate
>    /usr/pkgscr, but it's obviously not the case.
>
> We could change Sec. 1.3 `Terminology' to add that pkgsrc may live
> anywhere, not just in its traditional location in /usr/pkgsrc.
>
> That said, Chapter 2 `Where to get pkgsrc and how to keep it
> up-to-date' starts by saying:
>
>   `Before you download and extract the files, you need to decide where
>    you want to extract them.  When using pkgsrc as root user, pkgsrc
>    is usually installed in /usr/pkgsrc.  You are though free to
>    install the sources and binary packages wherever you want in your
>    filesystem...'
>
> This is just before it explains how to either fetch a pkgsrc tarball
> by ftp or check pkgsrc out of CVS.
>
> Can you suggest how the guide could be made clearer on this?

IMHO it's still not clear enough.

The confusion arises around the concept of using pkgscr as non-root
user. I might still want to install packages system-wide, but use a
root account only in the "make install" phase.

Isn't it just better to say: "Unless you want to use the root account
all the time, install pkgsrc in your home directory" ? Just removing
the mention of "/usr/pkgscr" would IMHO prevent a lot of trouble.

I would then just either open up the NetBSD wiki to anyone, or at the
very least those who have a wip account. What could possibly go wrong?

(I know that you can leave comments, but it'd be better to be able to
rewrite the main article).