Re: Packaging the FreeBSD base system with pkg(8)

> On Jan 28, 2016, at 09:38, Slawa Olhovchenkov <slw_at_zxy.spb.ru> wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 09:28:32AM -0800, NGie Cooper wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> On Jan 28, 2016, at 08:06, Slawa Olhovchenkov <slw_at_zxy.spb.ru> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> ...
>> 
>>> What about upgrade strongly outdated system?
>>> For example 11.0 at time 18.0? I.e. packages for 11.0 don't available,
>>> pkg from 11.0 don't undertund package base from 18.0 and etc.
>> 
>> This is an important question to ask and solve. There might be
>> points in time where seamless upgrades are not possible, and instead
>> you need to hop from release to release (this is not ideal, but it
>> could happen).
> 
> I see two side of this problem: support in sofware and support in
> infrastructure (ftp.freebsd.org and etc.). Because pkg is not part of
> base FreeBSD and live in ports -- this hops need to preserve (and
> testing?) packages collections for all past releases and don't move it
> to archive. And regular resigning package databases. And I miss
> somewere.
> 
>> For instance, at $work we're allowing upgrades from version X to Y,
>> and Y to Z, but not direct upgrades from X to Z. Part of the
>> rationale behind this change is, deprecation of platforms and the
>> change in upgrade framework, which requires upgrading from blessed
>> releases proven to work with the new framework.
> 
> This is common practic, yes.
> This is acceptably if possible got all necessary in time 18.0 for
> upgrade from 11.0.

Yes. Given the hiccups going from pkg 1.4 to 1.6 with the plist stuff, this is going to be more entertaining across interface breaks; it might be that pkgng is at the point where it's stable enough that interfaces won't change (unlikely, software tends to be fluid), or backwards compatibility will need to be maintained for older versions of pkgng.

Also, consider that you're going to be allowing upgrades from older RELEASE versions of the OS which might be using a fixed copy of pkgng -- how are you going to support that?

Thanks!
-NGIE