Re: installation prefix with pkgsrc including non-BSD: always /usr/pkg?

["Thomas Mueller" <mueller6724%bellsouth.net@localhost>]

> Please pardon my intrusion, as I am certainly too naÃve to know all of
> the arguments in favour of either position; but, just as a simple
> end-user, one of the primary attractions of pkgsrc for me has always
> been that (I thought) it would keep clear of the base system, so that
> switching between base and pkgsrc versions of system programs would be
> a matter of the order in which they appeared in $PATH, plus the
> confidence that nothing outside /usr/pkg depended on pkgsrc so that I
> could simply nuke /usr/pkg and restart from scratch whenever I wanted
> to (but maybe this is just because I mentally--and somewhat
> arbitrarily--separate the "base" system from "optional" packages,
> which is rather different from the debian mindset, say).

> Pouya

Keeping pkgsrc separate from the base system fits well with BSD, but with 
Linux, where everything is part of a package, it's a different matter.

Linux does not have a BSD-style base system; I am not familiar with other 
(quasi)-Unixes such as Tru64, AIX and Irix, or with Haiku-OS.

I noticed lilo in pkgsrc under sysutils with now-defunct home page and master 
site, I don't know where pkgsrc would have installed that to.

I am not ready to bootstrap pkgsrc for Linux until I read more and see how it 
behaves on my NetBSD 4.0.1 and 5.99.44 installations, which are on USB sticks, 
need to make sure it sets the execute (x) bit properly.  I got "Permission 
denied" with vbetool on my NetBSD 5.99.44 installation, didn't think to check 
for the execute bit then, and can't mount that now from Linux, where I can 
apparently mount and read ffsv1 but not ffsv2.

I can amend that last paragraph, I booted into NetBSD 5.1_STABLE  on hard 
drive, checked with 

ls -l /mnt/usr/pkg/sbin 

on the USB stick where NetBSD 5.99.44 is installed, and all those files showed 
the x (execute) bit.  So why I got "Permission denied" remains a mystery to me, 
but I must be aware that a "current" version is experimental with a high risk 
of being unstable.
 
Tom