pkgng questions

[Matt Burke]

On 08/30/12 13:01, Mark Felder wrote:
> I think you're very confused about what pkgng is for. At this time, ports
> are STILL the recommended way to install things and keep them up to date.

Really? I think the last time I compiled X or a web browser (until using
poudriere) was about 10 years ago.


> Pkgng is the first step required for us to get a better package management
> system so we can shift the community towards primarily using packages.

I like packages - they save me compiling massive things on my desktop and
they let me keep my servers running exactly the same software built from
our CI setup.  'make package' is so quick and easy, it'd be hard to beat.

So I thought I'd get a grip on pkgng before pkg_* disappears from base.

I had a couple of questions I wanted to answer -

1) How easy does it make keeping my desktop (currently releng/9.1 built
with dtrace) up-to-date
2) How much easier will it be to maintain production and testing servers?


The answer has made me start downloading an OpenIndiana iso.



>> 2. Is there a list of ports like nvidia-driver, nspluginwrapper,
>> linux-f10-flashplugin, sampleicc (dependency of libreoffice!) which aren't
>> in pkgng?
> 
> Everything can be built into the pkgng format except a few ports that need
> workarounds. There's a list on the wiki.
> 
> http://wiki.freebsd.org/pkgng
> 
> Go to the bottom "Known Failures" section.

I don't see any of the examples I gave listed, apart from nvidia-driver


>> 3. How do I force pkg to install/upgrade a single package, regardless of
>> dependencies being out of date?
> 
> You should never try to do this anyway; you'll end up with packages built
> against the wrong versions of libraries.

You're suggesting that I should upgrade an entire machine which may have
proven itself over a period of years to be perfectly stable, just because I
need a small utility which really doesn't care about the man page typo
which caused gettext-0.1.2_3 to change to gettext-0.1.2_4?


>> 4. How do I get poudiere to build against a local src/obj tree, or a zfs
>> snapshot of a pre-built jail, instead of 9.0-RELEASE?
> 
> The poudriere man page has all the instructions needed to create jails of
> any release version to be used for building packages.

No, the man page doesn't mention anything about specifying where to pull
the distribution from, only what method of access to use.


> You don't do it this way. You build everything on your poudriere server and
> push all of your packages to the client. You do this every single time. If
> you decide you want a new package on your client, you build it on your
> poudriere server and have your client request it. If you're using
> poudriere/pkgng, your clients should NEVER be compiling ports or installing
> packages outside of what your poudriere server is providing. Poudriere is
> giving you a "cleanroom" environment where it can guarantee that all the
> packages and their required packages/libraries are sane.

> Pkgng doesn't require ZFS -- poudriere does. Your clients should never have
> poudriere.

I am confused. If pkg_* are removed, how is a person with a single desktop
machine (worst case, a netbook) expected to operate if they need a specific
port build? Are they to spend a week compiling 1000+ ports themselves in a
poudriere VM?

Or is the flexibility of FreeBSD ports just not deemed to be useful to the
end user (or person unable to provide a dedicated any more?


>> 8. Is there a pkgng equivalent of 'ls -lt /var/db/pkg' without firing up
>> sqlite?
> 
> Are you looking for the date column (not sure why that's useful as it can
> change due to many things)? Doesn't "pkg info -a" suffice?

'ls -lt /var/db/pkg' will show me what packages were installed sorted by
day. It is very useful on servers which aren't routinely upgraded to the
latest and greatest untested versions


>> 9. Why didn't pkg upgrade tell me it replaced my custom-built packages? I'd
>> have liked for it to not break stuff when /var/db/ports/*/options differed
>> from the options I can see pkgng keeps in its metadata...
> 
> Your poudriere server can use you preferred options when it builds
> packages. Check the man page.

pkg2ng doesn't tell you that you're about to need another machine

$ man pkg2ng
No manual entry for pkg2ng


> Long story short: poudriere is a tool for you to build your OWN private
> package repositories (which is really handy!).

It is handy IF you have the resources to maintain a poudriere machine.

It is handy IF you really enjoy waiting for x.org and web browsers to compile

It is NOT handy if you just want to build one package to be built with
different options. In fact it makes a mockery of FreeBSD's ease of use.


> Pkgng is just the first step towards a large goal of greatly improving
> the enduser experience with FreeBSD.

By "improving", you mean "removing flexibility from"?


> I don't believe pkgng is default on any release yet, so you
> shouldn't be using public pkgng repositories for anything but testing. You
> should either be running your own poudriere server or you should just be
> using the new pkgng format with ports.

Wait, you said "If you're using poudriere/pkgng, your clients should NEVER
be compiling ports or installing packages outside of what your poudriere
server is providing"

So what is it?

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