ports and PBIs

Sat Apr 10 17:36:53 UTC 2010

On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 8:18 AM,  <kris at pcbsd.org> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> On Sat 10/04/10 3:35 AM , Garrett Cooper <yanefbsd at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>
>> yes but there are still dependency problems if you want to install a
>> single
>> package and you installed all the previous ones a year ago.
>> With PBIs each package is self standing, so you can install one
>> and not worry if it requires a different version of some library
>> to what you installed last year.
>
> If I'm understanding you correctly you're saying it's an issue when I do:
>
> pkg_add A B C
>
> # 1 year passes
>
> pkg_add D
>
> # D depends on A, B, C, of different revisions. pkg_add barfs because
> it can't find the applications, etc.
>
> This is something that's been hashed over a number of times (a few of
> which I've participated in in #bsdports). There needs to be a simple
> update command which will handle the action of upgrading packages,
> because there isn't a proper command that will do so today.
>
> Unless PBIs are self-contained entities which have their own sets of
> dependent utilities and libraries, etc (which you weren't suggesting
> in the sentence above), or install into a common location with
> versioned directories (which is a pain in the ass and involves a lot
> of hardcoded pains dealing with libtool files, libraries, etc -- been
> there, done that with Gentoo Linux -- there are hack scripts written
> to work around several possible hardcoded version issue, and there are
> a handful), AFAIK there's nothing positive and new that PBIs can bring
> to the table in this regard that can't be implemented in pkg_install
> as-is, other than the point-click-install user-friendly interface.
>
>
>
> Incorrect. The difference is in complexity at install-time. Even if you
> improve the package manager
>
> to better resolve and upgrade all related dependencies as a result of doing
> a firefox upgrade, the fact
>
> still remains that just to update one package, you may have to also update a
> TON of various packages
>
> / libraries, any of which may be critical to other applications on your
> system. If just a single one of those
>
> things fails, you can end up breaking a lot of applications on your system
> or even your entire desktop.
>
> PBI system simplifies this process. Updating firefox, since its
> self-contained, does NOT run the risk
>
> of borking anything else on the system. You don't need to work about libpng,
> libjpeg, or some other seemingly
>
> trivial library (to the end user) causing a huge breakage for xorg, or
> KDE/Gnome, etc.
>
> This in my opinion is the fatal flaw of pretty much every open-source system
> out there right now. Something both
>
> windows & mac have recognized and dealt with. We instead try to write more
> and more complex package resolvers,
>
> while failing to address the main issue, that with such a complex chain of
> dependencies for something as simple
>
> as upgrading firefox, it increases the chances exponentially that something
> will break and ruin your day / weekend.
>
>
>
>>> PBIs only comprise a small set of packages in FreeBSD; if my
>>> understanding is correct based on a mirror referenced in pbidir.com,
>>> the number is currently under 500~750 PBIs -- this is drastically
>>> smaller than the number of binary packages produced by ports on a
>>> regular basis for FreeBSD.
>>>
>>>> solution? well let all the developers develop working ports in
>>>> progress in one place, give users like me a way to track these changes
>>>> and install and test them... I think FreeBSD becomes a better place for
>>>> it.
>>>
>>> Packages are more of the answer IMO, not PBIs. PBIs are merely a
>>> different set of contents and different means of delivering those
>>> contents, and while I like the idea of point - click - install, I'm
>>> not ready to create unnecessary complexity by having libraries rev'ed
>>> according to what the maintainer A believes are correct, even though
>>> maintainer B set it differently, and I'm not interested in sacrificing
>>> disk space for this reason. If I wanted to use a packaging scheme like
>>> this, I should be using Mac OSX as my primary operating system.
>>
>> well no-one is going to make you use PBIs
>
> Yes, but if I now have to waste more bandwidth and disk space
> installing packages, why shouldn't I go to another operating system?
> Switching over to PBIs will reel in more desktop and entry-level
> sysadmins, etc, but I fear that it will isolate folks in the embedded
> market as well as several more seasoned users because of the
> implications involved with the extra bandwidth requirement and
> footprint.
>
> This gave me a bit of a chuckle. PBI would not be intended as a replacement
> for ports,
> rather a utilizing of ports in such a way that we can start building
> self-contained, stand-alone
> binaries for end-users and those of us who value their time more than a few
> MB of disk space.
> Considering at every BSD conference it seems that the majority of developers
> are running Mac
> laptops, it would seem that even some developers agree with the principle,
> they just aren't doing
> it on FreeBSD. :)
>

I also, noticed this, and a several years back I was a Newcomer to FreeBSD
I was at BSDCan, and I wondered, why are all the developers using OSX?

it was then that I knew,that if we could get PC-BSD to the point where
the FreeBSD
developers CHOSE to use it over say OSX, we would REALLY help FreeBSD
as a whole.
it is for this exact reason, I believe PBI's should be merged in with
the ports tree in some fashion.

I do have a question, assuming PBI's were merged officially into the
FreeBSD ports tree,
say I had PostgreSQL Server installed, via PBI. then I wanted to tweak
a setting so I:

cd /usr/ports/databases/postgresql84-server/ && make deinstall clean

would the PBI at this point be removed? or no because it is self contained?

> However for my more hard-core friends, nothing stopping you from running
> your own ports down
> the road, more power to ya! For doing something like embedded work or  a
> server this makes total
> sense and I think it is a huge positive for FreeBSD, no reason to trash that
> or break it in any way.
> For the other 99.9% of society who want something "that just works" for
> day-to-day computing,
> something like PBI is very attractive. It would be great to have an OS that
> offers best of both worlds.
>
> --
> Kris Moore
>
>
>
>
>
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