Re: pbulk setup

[Mayuresh <mayuresh%acm.org@localhost>]

On Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 10:23:03PM -0400, David H. Gutteridge wrote:
> It's a volunteer project, so contributions are welcomed. :)

Sure. At least a HOWTO is something I could try and do.

But the problem is, I "got things to work" by trial and error. (Got them
to work is just my belief at the moment!) Largely, I have no idea why they
work when they do or why they don't when they don't! In such state I can't
be writing something for others.

For example, I never understood why bootstrap kit is not required for
NetBSD. Things never worked without it for me. Why pkg install settings in
the pbulk.conf have no effect or what are they meant for. Why use
/usr/bin/make on NetBSD, why not /usr/pbulk/bin/bmake? etc.

What I am convinced about is, pbulk is an essential utility not only for
administrators, but for average pkgsrc users also. Its documentation needs
to ideally reach the same level of maturity as of pkgsrc.

In fact, package maintainers may have the luxury of separate build
servers. An average user on the other hand builds packages on systems that
are in real use. Hence sandbox / pbulk is even more valuable for normal
users with not so intricate knowledge of pkgsrc's internals.

I'd go the extent of saying that pkgsrc guide should begin with
bootstrapping of pbulk rather than normal pkgsrc bootstrapping. It may
have a separate pointer or a note for people with dedicated build servers
where it can skip pbulk details.

What I can do is, once I have a minimal and reliably working pbulk.conf I
can keep it somewhere, possibly with some annotations. I think there is no
place for such ad-hoc file. May be I'll share it over email.

-- 
Mayuresh