Re: Option to trim packages

[Julio Merino <jmmv84%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 5:48 PM, Lloyd Parkes 
<Lloyd.Parkes%ird.govt.nz@localhost> wrote:
> Hi all,
> I've noticed that some packages install lots of files for supporting
> software development that are not needed on most production servers. An
> example is databases/db4. My Solaris build of it contains 41MB of files,
> only 4.5MB of which is even usable at runtime. OpenSSL is similar, but
> smaller all round.
>
> It seems to me that there is a class of package that provides libraries for
> other packages that could be trimmed somehow. I don't want to go down the
> Linux route of making people install a separate -devel package any time they
> want to do something useful, but I would like to give sysadmins the ability
> to build lightweight binary packages for deployment on production servers.
>
> Would making parts of the PLIST work for this? Maybe add a variable to
> PLIST_VARS?

Having binary packages that install different sets of files could be
extremely confusing, specially for dependency tracking.  The linux way
is much more clear in this regard.

Nothing prevents us from having several small packages built from a
single package source, i.e. thepkg-lib, thepkg-devel, etc, and then
have a thepkg meta-package that installs everything.  That should
address your complain of "having to install separate -devel packages
to do something useful".  And having this feature in pkgsrc (building
several packages out of a single one) could be useful on its own.

Cheers,

-- 
Julio Merino