>for things installed in /usr/pkg, it needs to be "/usr/pkg/db/pkg/..."

You beat me to it.  sysinst needs to move existing /var/db/pkg files
there, though.

>...for base system programs... /var/db/pkg/... is Right...  If you have
>a diskless client, well, the pkg_* tools need to be taught how to
>manipulate alternate DB files, and how to notify a DB that a package

What do you think of moving /var/db/pkg to, say, /var/sarhe/db/pkg?

pkg db files aren't really log, temporary, transient or spool files,
though.  Theyre meta-data for the pkg system, not "program-generated"
files like /var/db was intended for (stuff regenerated at each
reboot).  It'd be great if we could just install pkgs on the machine
serving /usr For the diskless-hosts and have everything Just Work.
But we can't share all of /var/db, cause the server and cliets might
have different kernels.

Reading alternate DB files is cool, but if there's a search-list, how
does the pkg system decided which directory to make changes to?

If you need to install separate sets of packages on the server and the
client (or they're different arches), maybe we have to cross that
bridge anyway. Yuck.

(I hope this isnt must-have for 1.4?)