Re: Importing tmux into base

[Julio Merino <jmmv%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

On Tue, Feb 08, 2011 at 05:23:51AM -0500, Matthew Mondor wrote:
> On Tue, 8 Feb 2011 09:22:04 +0000
> Julio Merino <jmmv%homeworld.netbsd.org@localhost> wrote:
> 
> > What do people think about importing tmux into base?
> 
> GNU screen(1) is indeed usually the first package I install.  Last I
> looked at tmux it didn't seem to compete well against it, although I
> have just tried it again now and think I'd not install screen if tmux
> was in the base system.
> 
> This tmux package somehow depends on ncurses (and didn't have a
> compile-time option to build against curses instead), I've not looked
> more into it.  I assume that this might be because it requires features
> that are absent of curses on stable NetBSD releases such as terminfo.

That is something to look at, indeed.  Getting tmux to work with curses
is a prerequisite for its import I presume.  (Note that roy@ says he wrote
a terminfo implementation; the package probably needs some extra logic to
avoid ncurses.)

> I tried to look for the features I use a lot in screen and most of them
> seem to have equivalents.  However, I didn't find how to have
> notification of window inactivity (useful when performing builds for
> instance).

I don't think the lack of a particular feature should prevent the import
of tmux.  tmux should be judged on itso own and not compared to screen
(except for the general features).  Point being that additional features
can always be requested and/or implemented!

> Personally I don't object about having it in the base system if it
> plays well with curses.  A possible disadvantage might be that for
> binary-only release users upgrading it might be harder in the case of
> a vulnerability.  That won't be a problem for me as I track stable
> branches from source.

It looks like tmux does not require setuid.

-- 
Julio Merino