I wonder if the package system shouldn't do a sanity check for the basic
collections during it's build phase - a check for tmac.andor, maybe some
other file in the text.tar.gz, misc.tar.gz, comp.tar.gz, etc. collections...
This would be especially effective during the build of pkg_install.  If you
can't build that, the rest of the system doesn't go.  It's an assumed
dependency now, we can extend the dependency tree to several executables if
we wanted too.

While this would seem to be an unusual case, it might not be as odd as one
would expect.  I could foresee plenty of places where people would install
the top two or three when they do the basic install of the system.  In fact,
now that I think about it, I know of at least two people using NetBSD for
firewalls that are using just the kern.tgz and base.tgz collections.
Checking for the 'complete' compiler set would solve this problem, and not
really cost us a lot.

Of course, the ludicrous extension of this would be an automatic upgrade
path for the basic system (installed as packages?).  Say you want to install
something that requires 1.5, and you're still on 1.4.3: the package system
could do the upgrade for you (if you wanted?).

Of course, that's starting to get back to that "How about a nice game of
chess" thing....

> Per Alistair Crooks
>
> On Mon, Apr 16, 2001 at 01:22:01PM -0400, Cannella, Michael (ISS
> Southfield) wrote:
> > I read over the archives for the pkg_install problems in early
> March, which
> > is when this problem began; at that time, I sup'ed and the symptoms were
> > similar to those described in those posts. Now, however:
> >
> >  - The system hasn't been in use since then
> >  - I did a 'sup' this morning.
> >  - Attempting to make anything but pkg_install gives me the
> "...your package
> > tools need to be updated to 2001/03/06 versions...type 'make
> install' in the
> > .../pkg_install directory"
> >  - Attempting to make pkg_install results in:
> >
> > Extracting for digest-20010320
> > Patching for digest-20010320
> > Configuring for digest-20010320
> > Building for digest-20010320
> > <-----some compile commands-------->
> > cc -O2 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wpointer-arith
> > -Wno-uninitialized -Wreturn-type -Wcast-qual -Wpointer-arith
> -Wwrite-strings
> > -Wswitch -Wshadow -Werror -I/usr/pkgsrc/pkgtools/digest/work
> > -DVERSION="20010320" -DHAVE_S
> > :make: don't know how to make /usr/share/tmac/tmac.andoc. Stop
> >
> > Nothing on the list seems to mention this problem; can anyone
> give me some
> > guidance?
> >
> > Note: As a security guy, I've run NetBSD as a firewall for a
> few years, but
> > never ran apps or services. So, I'm not very familiar with the package
> > system, which is now appearing as complex and arcane as I
> imagined; please
> > use simple instructions and short words to tell me just how
> ignorant I am
> > ;^/
> >
>
> I'm sorry that you find the packages system arcane and complex - we
> strive to make it the exact opposite, but we've obviously come a bit
> short in your case. And you're obviously not ignorant if you've been
> using NetBSD for years.
>
> The long and the short of it, as John Darrow has stated, is that the
> build framework that is the packages collection is trying to format
> the manual pages for the digest package for you. This is so that you
> can see what the related commands in the package can do. And you are
> unfortunately missing the correct utilities on your system that would
> format said manual pages.
>
> The simplest step would be to install nroff, since you'll need it at a
> later stage to build manual pages for other packages.  We don't really
> target pkgsrc at people without nroff, since then the inventory files
> which come with packages would be a real pain to maintain.
>
> Hope this helps,
> Alistair
>