Re: [RFC/P] Port System Re-Engineering (Repost from -ports_at_)

On Monday 03 December 2007 16:19:15 Aryeh M. Friedman wrote:
> [Repost from -ports_at_]
>
> As has been hashed out in -ports_at_ over the last few days there is at
> least a need to examine weither or not the current ports system should
> remain as is or potentially be re-engineered in the future (estimates
> if and when needed vary from ASAP to 10-15 years).   I have
> volunteered to undertake a feasibility/pilot project to examine what
> changes (if any) are needed in the system (for the purposes of this
> thread I will not venture any of my own suggestions).   I have the
> following broad questions for people:
>
> 1. What is more important to your personal use of FreeBSD (the ports
> system, the underlaying OS, some other aspect)?

the underlaying OS

>
> 2. How frequently do you interact with the ports systems and what is
> the most common interaction you have with it?

upgrading selected ports via portupgrade, at least once per month 

>
> 3. What is the single best aspect of the current system?

Automation and simplicity of the port installation procedure, granularity 
of ports building process.  

>
> 4. What is the single worst aspect of the current system?

a management and compilation time overhead when number of installed ports 
are significant (for Desktops it's a waste of time and resources);
inability to keep only binary based installations due to lack of official 
package updates between RELEASES;
very complicated and not automatic pkg-plist mechanism;     
inability to forceably purge the configuration files;
inability to cross-architecture building;
inability to downgrade;
inability to predict download and installation volume for all the 
dependencies even for binary installations;
inability to maintain base system as a collection of ports;

> 5. If you where a new FreeBSD user how would your answers above
> change?   If you where brand new to UNIX how whould they change?

I'd to use some sort of gui and binary based installation procedure.

> 6. Assuming that there was no additional work on your behalf would you
> use a new system if it corrected your answer to number 4?

Yes.

>
> 7. Same as question 6 but for your answer on question 3?

Yes.

>
> 8. How long have you used FreeBSD and/or UNIX in general?

Since FreeBSD 4.7

>
> 9.  That is your primary use(s) for your FreeBSD machine(s) (name upto
> 3)?

Production servers, development boxes.

>
> 10. Assuming there is no functional difference what is your preferred
> installation method for 3rd party software?

only ports

>
> 11. On a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the best) please rate the
> importance of the following aspects of the ports system?
>
>        a. User Interface 5
>        b. Consistency of behaviors and interactions  1
>        c. Accuracy in dependant port installations 2
>        d. Internal record keeping 3
>        e. Granularity's of the port management system 4
>
> 12. Please rate your personal technical skill level?

High

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- Best regards, Nikolay Pavlov. <<<-----------------------------------    
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