Re: CFT: FreeBSD Package Base

 Hi Kris,

On Sun, 28 Apr 2019 15:52:21 -0400
<kris_at_ixsystems.com> wrote:

> FreeBSD Community,
> 
>  
> 
> I'm pleased to announce a CFT for builds of FreeBSD 12-stable and 13-current
> using "TrueOS-inspired" packaged base. These are stock FreeBSD images which
> will allow users to perform all updating via the 'pkg' command directly.
> Rather than trying to answer all questions in this announcement, we've
> created a FAQ page with more details. Please refer to this page, and let us
> know if you have additional questions that we can include on that page going
> forward.
> 

 While I appreciate the effort I have some doubt about your
"re-implementation" of pkgbase. I don't see any improvement compared to
what is in base currently, I even see downside of your implementation.

 - How do you plan with the need of updating kernel first, reboot and
updating the rest of the userland after ? (Needed for major and minor
upgrade, 12.0 to 12.1 for example, and simple update in -STABLE and
-HEAD branch). This is still a problem with the base pkgbase.
 - This is even worse because you are using the same repository for
base and pkg so if a user pkg update and both kernel and pkg(8) needs
to be updated and pkg use a new syscall or capsicum thing it will be
updated first and couldn't proceed with the rest of the update (this is
a supposition, I haven't personally tested).
 - It seems that multiple kernels isn't supported in your
implementation, this is already supported in pkgbase but still need
some love. This is an important point as it will allow user to choose
easily the kernel that they want to use and will also allow us
developper to push kernels with new features to help testing.
 - Since you reduced the granularity on the userland bits it would mean
that if we use your implementation for -p updates we would download the
whole userland packages instead of just updating the package that was
patched. For example with pkgbase, updating from 12.0 to 12.0p1 will
only update the FreeBSD-runtime package. Yes this package is still big
to download when you compare to what have changed but until pkg(8) have
delta pkg supports (and if it will have support, I don't know if
this is a wish or not) this is the best way to go.
 - I see that you are sorting the plist for kernel and userland based
on the line length [1], why is that ?

 I think that the only advantage that your solution offers is that if
we remove a componant of base (rcmds for example in 12-CURRENT) those
files would be removed as they are in the userland-base package while
for pkgbase the FreeBSD-rcmd package will be deleted in the repo and
will not be deleted in the user computer.

> 
> Additionally, I will be hosting a Package Base working group at BSDCan 2019,
> and welcome user and developer attendance to discuss this and other ongoing
> package work:
> 
>  
> 
> https://wiki.freebsd.org/DevSummit/201905/PackageBase
> 

 I will be present and looking forward to work with you on this.

 Cheers,

 P.S. :  FYI I'm working on pkgbase currently and I will have some
patches to commit soon (bsdinstall support, memstick creation that
install a pkgbase aware installaton etc ...).

[1] :
https://github.com/trueos/trueos-ports/blob/trueos-master/os/userland-base/Makefile#L35

-- 
Emmanuel Vadot <manu_at_bidouilliste.com> <manu_at_freebsd.org>