Port system "problems"

[Marcus von Appen]

On, Tue Jun 26, 2012, Jeremy Messenger wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 3:44 AM, Baptiste Daroussin <bapt at freebsd.org> wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 10:34:00AM +0200, Marcus von Appen wrote:
> >> Matthew Seaman <m.seaman at infracaninophile.co.uk>:
> >>
> >> > On 26/06/2012 08:26, Marcus von Appen wrote:
> >> >>>> 1. Ports are not modular
> >> >
> >> >>> What do you mean by modular? if you are speaking about subpackages it
> >> >>> is coming,
> >> >>> but it takes time
> >> >
> >> >> I hope, we are not talking about some Debian-like approach here (foo-bin,
> >> >> foo-dev, foo-doc, ....).
> >> >
> >> > Actually, yes -- that's pretty much exactly what we're talking about
> >> > here.  Why do you feel subpackages would be a bad thing?
> >>
> >> Because it makes installing ports more complex, causes maintainers to rip
> >> upstream installation routines apart, and burdens users with additional tasks
> >> to perform for what particular benefit (except saving some disk space)?
> >>
> >> If I want to do some development the Debian way, I would need to do the
> >> following:
> >>
> >> - install foo-bin (if it ships with binaries)
> >> - install foo-lib (libraries, etc.)
> >> - install foo-dev (headers, etc.)
> >> - install foo-doc (API docs)
> >>
> >> With the ports I am currently doing:
> >>
> >> - install foo
>
> I agree.
>
> > yes but you do not allow to install 2 packages one depending on mysql51 and one
> > depending on mysql55, there will be conflicts on dependency just because of
> > developpement files, the runtime can be made not to conflict.
> >
> > I trust maintainers to no abuse package splitting and do it when it make sense.
> >
> > In the case you give I would probably split the package that way:
> > foo (everything needed in runtime: bin + libraries)
> > foo-dev (everything needed for developper: headers, static libraries, pkg-config
> > stuff, libtool stuff, API docs)
> > foo-docs (all user documentation about the runtime)
> >
> > of course there will be no rule on how to split packages, just common sense.
>
> Disagree. We shouldn't split for that. Have you seen how many Linux
> users report when they can't compile one of application, just because
> they didn't install the *-dev? A LOT (thousands and thousands)! When
> it's A LOT then it means that it's flawed. If the upstream provide the
> split tarballs then I do not have any problem with it.

Seconded. For newcomers, such a package system is as complex as an
Ubuntu or Debian (under the hood), if they "just want to do X".

Archlinux does provide complete packages, which makes perfect sense for
me. I still do not see any reason or argument on why we would need
sub-packages.

Cheers
Marcus
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