Subject: Re: pkg_add just toasted my entire home directory
To: Alistair Crooks <azcb0@amdahl.com>
From: Dante Profeta <dante@mclink.it>
List: netbsd-bugs
Date: 10/14/1998 21:10:42
Alistair Crooks wrote:
> 
> > > I su'd to root in my home directory, typed pkg_add to install a large
> > > pkg...it ran out of space in /tmp, said it was "cleaning up".  Next
> > > thing I know, it removed the entire contents of my home directory.
> >
> > This makes me damn glad I've never gone near the package tools.
> 
> I'm sorry that this whole thing happened, and I'm sorry that you
> feel that way.  I've been trying to clean up some of the code we
> inherited, and have done some of the modifications that I want. Others
> are planned. It's no excuse, but, now that we have a working packages
> collection, I'm quite sad to find such ... entrenched views.

A couple of years ago, some people I know stopped using NetBSD because
they did find hard to build sources designed for other un*xs, and for
some reasons they didn't want to spend time fixing others people code.
If only they have had today packages they where surely happy using
NetBSD.

So I'm convinced packages are a very important thing to keep alive.
Moreover the way packages can be approached (i.e. pkg_add or gzip/tar)
let user have a good degree of flexibility.

I feel to thank you to all people involved in packages tools and in
building packages.
FMPOV you are doing a great work.

--
  Dante_