Re: Looking ahead

[Allen Briggs <briggs%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Tue, Jun 05, 2007 at 10:51:26AM -0400, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> I'm not sure what you mean by "build to image", but for me, finishing
> syspkg would help a lot on the regular system as well as for embedded
> systems.

"build to image" is kind of shift in how one thinks about managing
a NetBSD system.  In the traditional *nix system management, you're
managing a system with a lot of pieces, a set of applications,
services, and configuration files.  With "build to image" (I want
a better name for it), you're managing two things: a binary blob
containing the applications and services and some kind of configuration
blob (which needs to be worked out).  So the configuration stays
on the system separate from the "binary blob" which is hopefully
read-only and upgraded en masse.  In "build to image", you build
the "binary blob" part with whatever options you want/need, and
maybe a default configuration in case there's no (or a corrupted)
configuration on the system.

I expect that model is not one that fits all embedded systems, but
that's what I want to find out.

-allen

-- 
Allen Briggs  |  http://www.ninthwonder.com/~briggs/  |  
briggs%ninthwonder.com@localhost