On Tue, Feb 08, 2005 at 01:34:49PM +0100, Laurent DAVERIO wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> >And, over time, pkgsrc has evolved to run on a number of different
> >platforms, not just NetBSD - Interix, and Solaris are probably two
> >ends of the spectrum there.
> 
> I run several FreeBSD web servers myself, and I also have to
> administer a couple of exotic/legacy servers, mainly under Solaris
> 7/8 and AIX 5.1.
> 
> I'm by no means not a pkgsrc expert, but I sometimes get the
> impression that the besic concept of a "universal" package system is
> overstretched, and on the verge of breaking.  Two examples from my
> experience :

Well, I thank you for trying pkgsrc, and agree that some platforms
and architectures are much better tested than others.  The only way
out of that is to recruit more people with access to the hardware.
 
> On Solaris :  after several years of trying to manage third-party
> software using different methods (SunFreeware repository, pkg-get
> script, installation "by hand"), I found out (Slashdot, if I
> remember correctly) about pkgsrc, and it's by far the best (i.e. 
> most complete/coherent) package system for Solaris, period.  I've
> had my share of trouble with it, partly due to my FreeBSD habits
> (Note to self :  NEVER use 'make update' !), and partly to
> Solaris-specific pkgsrc problems (lots of minor to medium annoyances
> with Xpm, Apache, Python, ...).  Currently I'm stuck with a
> dependency problem in which pkgsrc seems to mix up the two version
> of Perl, perl5 and perl58 (it looks for Perl 5.8.6 when trying to
> determine if package lang/perl5 is already installed).  I sent a
> message about it to tech-pkg several days ago, but have received no
> answers yet.

I know of a number of developers who use pkgsrc on Solaris, and who
publish the results of bulk builds on the pkgsrc-bulk@ mailing list -
at the same time, anyone wanting to help out here would be great. 
Because we could do with people who can look at the results, and fix
things, and then let us know what you did, preferably by using
send-pr.
 
> On AIX :  if found pkgsrc completely useless, and was unable to
> install even the most basic apps (pkgsrc insists on compiling its
> own gcc, and fails to compile either gcc 2.95 or 3.3 ; perl won't be
> compiled by gcc ; python and apache fail as well, etc.).  I had to
> resort to a hodge-podge of sources (mainly AIX PDS library, IBM's
> repository) to get a minimal Apache working.

I can only apologise, and ask you to help us out.  I haven't touched
AIX since 1992 (mainly out of choice), but you can help us make pkgsrc
a better beast on AIX.
 
> I'm aware that these two platforms may not be the best way to get
> introduced to pkgsrc, and in fact I'm going to install NetBSD/amd64
> on a test server today or tomorrow to see how pkgsrc runs in the
> best possible conditions (also, I'm not quite happy with the current
> state of FreeBSD 5.3, and I want to explore a possible way out, just
> in case).
> 
> I'm not trying to be negative about pkgsrc, but It would help
> newcomers like me to state clearly that all supported platforms are
> not supported equally by pkgsrc, and indicate which ones are the
> "Tier 1" platforms.

Alternatively, if you know of any sites which have fixes for software
packages for AIX, please let us know.

Thanks,
Alistair