First of all, I have to say the comments below are MHO. So if you're disagree with them just ignore them.
On Monday 03 March 2008 12:55, Alexander E. Patrakov wrote: > [ ] I am an editor of LFS or one of the related projects > [X] I use LFS as my primary Linux system > [X] I use LFS on more than one PC (including virtual machines) > [X] I deviate a lot from LFS (not counting package updates as deviations) I use DIY Linux actually and I don't deviate from it a lot. > [X] I deviate a lot from BLFS (not counting package updates as deviations) > > I use the following package management technique: > ( ) It's all in my head! > ( ) I trust the lists of files in the book > ( ) I rebuild everything every three months or less, so there is no > need to manage anything! > ( ) Installation script tracing with installwatch or checkinstall > ( ) Installation script tracing with some other tool > ( ) Timestamp-based "find" operation > ( ) User-based > ( ) RPM > ( ) DPKG > (X) Simple binary tarballs produced with DESTDIR > ( ) Other DESTDIR-based method of producing binary packages > ( ) Other > > I use the following features provided by a package manager: > [X] Knowing where each file comes from > [X] Clean uninstallation of a package > [X] Removal of obsolete files when upgrading to a new version > [X] Ability to upgrade toolchain components (most notably, glibc) painlessly > [X] Ability to revert mistakes easily and quickly by installing an old > binary package > [X] Ability to compile once, deploy on many macines > [X] Scripting the build > > I will ignore the future LFS advice on package management if it > [ ] Can't be applied on a busy machine where many files are > accessed/modified everyy minute > [X] Can't be used to transfer packages to another machine > [X] Interferes with config.site files described in DIY-linux > [X] Will clobber configuration files wen upgrading package versions > [X] Doesn't explain how to package software beyond BLFS I sometimes build/pack/install packages absent in BLFS. > [ ] Requires learning another language/syntax besides bash shell syntax > [ ] Exists at all * [X] Requires mono/java/smalltalk/lisp/python/mysql/kylix/etc to run I use LFS because I'd like to have a small system and the self-built LFS contains only what I need. I don't want to have MySQL or Mono on my system just because the PM cannot work without them. Besides, I'm happy without python now. * [X] Cannot correctly process files owned by more than one package. * [X] Requires too much time to determine what files were installed IOW, I will definitely ignore any package manager using "find" to create a package file list. * [X] Doesn't guarantee that all the installed files are in the package database. At the beginning of my learning LFS I used paco, but it's too easy to fool it by using static binaries when installing files. I use binary applications (such as Opera) and I want to trust my package manager. * [X] Uses gzip as _the only_ format for package compression. I personally prefer compressors with a better compression ratio, such as bzip2 or lzma. * [X] Almost impossible (or requires special tool) to recover in the case of (for example) user's pressing Ctrl-C while unpacking the package tarball on the root filesystem. So, I would prefer a PM using a simple text-based database to a PM using a binary database. * [X] Requires _me_ to list all the files of a package. AFAIK RPM specs require that. I can be wrong here though. * [ ] Doesn't include the information about package dependencies. I don't need it. FYI my "ideal" package manager is Slackware's one except the following drawbacks: 1. It doesn't understand anything except gzip. 2. It works with symlinks in strange way I don't understand/like. 3. It's too complicated for the things it does. IMHO it could really be simplier a lot. 4. Absense of preinstall and pre/postremove scripts. So I wrote a simple slackware-like PM that has not these drawbacks. I also tried many PMs including pacman, crux's pkgutils, slackware/tukaani pkgtools, paco, dbnb. I also used emerge and RPM when working with other distros, and I've never used dpkg. -- Nothing but perfection Vladimir -- http://linuxfromscratch.org/mailman/listinfo/lfs-dev FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/faq/ Unsubscribe: See the above information page
