On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 06:54:04 +0000 (UTC), Martijn van Buul
<martijnb@atlas.ipv6.stack.nl> wrote:
> It occurred to me that Rick Kelly wrote in gmane.os.netbsd.current:
> > Pkgsrc is limited. Install NetBSD 2.0 and use the pkgsrc for NetBSD 2.0, or
> > live with getting your /usr/pkg trashed by a newer pkgsrc trying to upgrade
> > everything that you already have installed.
> 
> Pkgsrc, as fine as it is, is completely inadequate for having everything as a
> package. If we're going to make libc a package, for example, how on earth
> are we going to deal with dependencies and updating? The Gentoo way of
> doing this seems to be "Ah, just overwrite it, user will reinstall the
> system if we break things horribly now".
> 
> I really don't see the *point* in discarding the current distribution scheme,
> just like I really don't see the *point* in having no MTA in base. Every
> NetBSD box needs to have *some* kind of local delivery agent at the very
> least - otherwise cron (including the weekly/monthly/daily security stuff)
> will break. So shall we remove cron too, then?
> 
> There's nothing to be gained, and a lot to be lost.

Hello, 

I have a (perhaps stupid) newbie question regarding this topic: 
if the the MTAs are removed and will be only available in pkgsrc, 
this means that if someone wants to install them needs an
Internet connection so that the package system can download and 
compile them ?  This would be very inconvenient for those with 
dialup connections or those who have no connection at all. 

I haven't had the time to play with netbsd. I've just installed netbsd 2.0
(i386) and it's been a nice surprise to see how compact it is.  I mean,   
the installation cd has only 170MB,    but it contains all the basic
programs.   Linux distributions are much bigger nowadays ...  


Best wishes,
Adrian Maier