[ On Tue, December 15, 1998 at 15:11:08 (+0100), Manuel Bouyer wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: /usr/pkg/etc vs. /etc
>
>[[....]]

Most of what I was going to say in reply has already been said by
others, I think.

I particularly liked the comment that what you're doing with "rdist"
almost totally eliminates the need for actual packages in the first
place though the use of pkg_* tools makes it easier to upgrade
individual applications, and should make it easier to cleanly and safely
remove a package from the server.  In any case the package tools don't
directly affect your client systems -- only your server -- and you
probably don't even want the client systems to be able to run the pkg_*
tools (except perhaps pkg_info, but you could do that by exporting the
servers /var/db/pkg (read-only!) and symlinking to it on the clients).

My comments were based on a scenario where the users have much more
individual control over their workstations and each may want a unique
set of packages installed.  In my scenario it may even be desirable to
give the root password to the user and let them manage their own package
installation and removal.  In any case it really should not matter how
diskfull or diskless the workstations in my scenario are.

> To have precompiled binaries, or get sources that have already been tested
> and are known to compile.

Packages are easy enough to create for nearly anything....  The amount
of effort is essentially relative to the "size" and complexity of the
package.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods@acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
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