Re: ANN: Availability of pkg(8)-capable pkgsrc

[John Marino <netbsd%marino.st@localhost>]

On 11/14/2016 01:21, Thomas Mueller wrote:
> from John Marino:
>
> > pkgn2ng was a terrible idea. Why would anyone spend the effort to
> > convert from one package format to another when they can just
> > rebuild the software?
>
> > It is a serious amount of effort to build such a converter when
> > the impact of not having it is very small.
>
> Upgrading many packages from pkgsrc or FreeBSD ports is very
> time-consuming and subject to errors. It seemed pkg2ng was
> preferable.

FreeBSD provides updated packages on a weekly basis.
So "updating" only took the time to download the binaries.
I would strongly disagree it was "subject to errors".

In fact, all you had to do was get a list of primary packages you want,
pkg_delete every existing package on the system and then "pkg ins `cat
mylist`".  It couldn't be simpler nor less prone to error.

In any case it's moot.  There will be no equivalent pkg2ng on pkgsrc.
As joerg indicated, freebsd's isn't compatible and nobody is going to
work on an equivalent converter.

> > > So now with pkg(8)-capable pkgsrc in its infancy, there would be
> > > a transitional phase where pkg_rolling-replace wouldn't work, and
> > > Synth wouldn't be ready.
>
> > One can generate repositories with pkg(8) directly. All it's doing
> > is scanning the packages in one directory to get the relationships
> > so that pkg install command works better.  There's also a "pkg add"
> > command.
>
> I still don't see how one could upgrade many packages en masse. There
> would need to be more documentation.

The documentation exists.  It's native pkg functionality for which there
are many man pages as well as some handbook description.


> I came from Linux Slackware, where the package manager has no regard
> for dependencies.
>
> NetBSD pkgsrc and FreeBSD with portmaster, portupgrade and the old
> pkg_* tools was heaven by comparison. I became spoiled and
> discontinued my subscription to Slackware following v13.0.

At this time, poudriere and synth are the only tools that I and the port
leaders would recommend.



> Assuming the new pkg builds successfully, the instructions in the
> README seem easy enough to follow.
>
> But there needs to be documentation on how to update packages from
> source.  Even the new pkg will have bugs, and there figure to be
> improvements and updates.

Updating from source is independent of what PKG_FORMAT you choose.  In 
other words, nothing changes in this regard.  pkgsrc itself is the same. 
 The only change is that after the build is done, it's packaged in a 
new format, and those packages are managed by pkg(8), not the pkg_* tools.

John



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