On 08/02/14 06:25, Gustav Fransson Nyvell wrote: > Hi, there, > > I wanted to run something by you, mkay. About package management. I > wonder if this has been shouted at already. I remember from SunOS that > packages are installed in a different manner than let's say Red Hat and > of course OpenBSD. They install it in the form /pkgs/PROGRAM/VERSION, > example /pkgs/gimp/1.0. GoboLinux does this. I think this has some > advantages over installing /usr/local/bin/gimp1.1 and > /usr/local/bin/gimp2.0. What do you think? What have you said? > > Ready to be shouted at;
no. Plain and simple. You have to understand a few things about Solaris and OpenBSD. Solaris takes great pride in binary compatibility between versions -- Solaris 6 binaries can run on Solaris 11, etc. OpenBSD takes great pride in its "unified system" approach -- your third party apps will be compiled for the version you are running, and you are expected to upgrade all together regularly. Now, a lot of people will look at that and think, "Solaris is better! It's easier to maintain!". Having worked for companies with decade-old applications on Solaris (or a long-term support version of RedHat) because no one really understands them anymore, I'd argue the real life impact of the Solaris model is sloppy administration, because it permits it. And ten years later, you have a mission critical app no one understands, no one is willing to touch...and it's got more security holes than a fresh Windows 2000 install. It is much better to be looking at dmesg with a date one year old saying to you, "you need to upgrade me, you bum!" than a ten year old system that is one crash away from shutting you down. Nick.
