Poll about package management

[Greg Schafer]

Alexander E. Patrakov wrote:

> 2008/3/4, Greg Schafer <gschafer at zip.com.au>:
>>  [x] file conflict detection  <-- essential feature
>>  [x] simple BLFS style dependencies  <-- essential feature
>>  [x] pre/post install scripts  <-- essential feature
>>  [x] ability to build the whole distro as non-root  <-- killer feature
>>  [x] "meta" package support (package groups)
>>  [x] knowledge of which packages are pulled in as dependencies and which
>>  are installed explicitly
>>
>>  BTW, Pacman does all of the above.
> 
> Yes, it does. I have a virtual machine with Arch, and its package
> manager really looks good. I have not tried to write my own build
> script for it yet, though. Since you know more about Pacman: does it
> allow running arbitrary scripts on the DESTDIR contents before
> actually creating a package?

Um, I don't think so. However, while Pacman itself is written in C, the
"makepkg" portion of the system is a Bash script which allows easy
hackability. That's what allowed Alex Merry to write the fake_install()
patch that I still use today.

While I'm a Pacman fan, it is by no means a perfect PM. It uses an
ASCII text package database which tends to slow down when you have a
zillion packages installed. It probably won't do everything you want, like
easy splitting off of -devel and runtime packages. The config file
handling is allegedly based on the same algos as RPM.

Having said all that, I'm still on 2.9.x. A Refbuild reader contacted me
recently and said he was running the latest version successfully so I'll
look at upgrading once I finish beating on GCC-4.3 and various
toolchain/build method matters.

You seem to be striving for perfection. When I want all the bells and
whistles I run a mainstream distro. It is simply too labour intensive to
have "the lot" on a self built system. I looked at the amount of effort
Dan has apparently put into his RPM based system and weeped :-(  Pacman is
good enough for my meagre needs, but I wouldn't use it if, for example, I
was trying to be the next Ubuntu.

Regards
Greg
-- 
http://www.diy-linux.org/