On Fri, Jun 27, 2003 at 05:35:33PM +0200, Thomas Hafner wrote:
> Richard Rauch <rkr@olib.org> writes:
> 
> > Re. http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-help/2003/06/26/0016.html
> > 
> > You can check the current number of packages in NetBSD's package system
> > (it's around 3000, I think).  However, I have two points of view on that:
> > 
> >  * After about the 1000 mark, pretty much everything that most users
> >    will want is already in there.  It's nice to have more options, and
> >    more obscure things, of course.
> 
> If I look at
> <http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/software/pkg-growth.html>, I see
> that NetBSD has reached the 1000 with version 1.4.1 in 1999. But

Sounds about right...though I thought it was earlier than that.  (So much
for my memory!  (^&)

(BTW: If you look at the http://mail-index.netbsd.org/ view of messages,
 you'll see that URL's get highlighted.  Due to a bug (or inherant limitation)
 in the scanning of URL's, trailing punctuation gets erroneously included
 in the URL, which breaks the link.  For future reference, could you please
 try to put a space *immediately* after any URL you give?  I know that I'm
 not the only one who principally reads the lists via mail-index.  Some
 may also use the online archives to research old questions and answers,
 and there are not presently(?) any FTP'able archives of the mailing lists,
 as far as I know.

 Thanks.)


> before version 1.6 I couldn't even think about seriously using NetBSD,
> because my PC is equipped rather with a ISDN board than a modem (the

I think that the ISDN support is in the kernel.  So I'm puzzled what
this has to do with pkgsrc.  Unless you were just trying to point
out that it didn't have *everything*...  Peace on Earth seems like a
better place to start if you want to undermine that claim, though.
(Err, wait, there's ...pkgrc/emulators/peace/.  Nevermind.  (^&)

Note that pkgsrc is NOT bound to NetBSD releases.  You can mix-and-match,
and even use pkgsrc on non-NetBSD systems.


> kernel didn't support ISDN before, am I right?). Is ISDN really just
> "more options" or a "more obscure thing"?

Maybe everyone uses ISDN where you are.  I've never seen it first-hand.


(BTW, ISDN appears to be supported in 1.6, contrary to your claim that
it was added in 1.6.1.  1.6 was a major release.  1.6.1 was a patch-
release, which was essentially confined to fixing bugs in 1.6.)


> [By the way, does anybody know something like ``xisdnload'' for
> NetBSD? That is a graphical ISDN load meter allowing to connect and
> disconnect the ISDN connection by mouse click.]

Not a direct answer to your query (I hope someone else can answer) but:

How do you connect/disconnect, now?  Via isdnd (skimming the man-page
leaves me a little vague)?  Or do you use ifconfig directly on a
kernel interface?  Can you do these operations with a user-command from
your normal user-account?

If the answer to the last question is "Yes", then a simple Tcl/Tk
script of a few lines can do this for you.  (My hazy understanding is
that you don't want to run Tcl/Tk scripts as root.)

(Alright, it's bloatware, in the sense of requiring that you isntall
Tcl/Tk...but if you load up on other gadgets, you won't notice just a
wafer thin...)


Also, you MIGHT be able to get the ISDN interface to come up on-demand
and go away after inactivity.  PPP and the in-kernel PPPoE can be done
that way, at least.  Would this work as well as (or better than) manually
turning it on & off?


> >  * Comparing two different package systems based on the number of packages
> >    seems a little bit dubious.
> 
> Ok, I agree. But I noticed that there are some programs that I'm used
> to (by Debian GNU/Linux), but which don't seem to be available for
> NetBSD. Probably a NetBSD user trying to run Debian GNU/Linux would
> also miss some programs, who knows?

Indeed, who knows?  (^&

When I tried Debian GNU/LINUX, I didn't use it long enough to notice (and
remember) any major gaps in the packages.  (Maybe Dr. Scheme was missing
at the time?)


-- 
  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  http://www.olib.org/~rkr/