Hi,
I'd like to announce the first alpha release of Skylift, the successor
of Rocketboost as package manager. There is now a bootstrap tarball for
Skylift, so everybody can check it out:
http://download.camlcity.org/download/godi-skylift-20120607.tar.gz
Skylift includes a lot of new features:
- Profiles are a new concept which allows the user to configure
non-standard package sources easily. This includes sources
provided by third parties, but also filters on package lists,
as well as patches.
- Binary packages are handled in a better way, so that it is
now reasonable to distribute pre-built packages. Especially,
Skylift defines a scheme to describe whether binary packages
are compatible to each other. Remote repositories are also
supported. There is a user interface for selecting binary
packages.
- Patching has become way easier than before. If an extracted
source is edited, Skylift can often create the patch file with
a single command. The patches can be saved permanently in three
places: as a local patch, in the package definition (useful
when you are package maintainer), or, and this is new, in the
profile.
- One can now export sources, binaries, and profiles. There are
special scripts that copy these objects to export directories,
where they are provided in the right format so that other
GODI deployments can use them as remote repository. When a
web server is pointed to these directories, this also works
over HTTP.
- There is now built-in support for HTTP and FTP in godi_console
(i.e. wget is no longer needed). There is an option to activate
HTTPS and WebDAV (post-boot). Furthermore, GODI can also access
password-protected resources. Together with the export feature
this means one can set up repositories for private use.
I hope that this makes GODI much more versatile in the future.
Especially I expect that we'll see alternate package repositories,
because it is now very simple to set these up (you only need a web
server, and use the new export scripts to put the packages or profiles
to the web directories).
Also, the new features regarding binary packages could be handy in a
lot of situations. Think of providing binary repositories for students,
or repositories for brittle operating systems (imagine Windows).
Another application: Working groups can use the new profile feature,
and agree on common sources, and the exact versions of packages they
want to use.
There is a document giving a more technical overview:
http://godi.camlcity.org/godi/project-doc/skylift-intro.txt
Skylift is now in a state where it is reasonable to try things out. It
is not yet 100% stable - sometimes funny things happen. But in other
situations it is already better than Rocketboost, especially some nasty
bugs have been fixed. I'm especially interested in feedback: what do
you like, what not, and which things can be improved.
Gerd
--
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Gerd Stolpmann, Darmstadt, Germany g...@gerd-stolpmann.de
Creator of GODI and camlcity.org.
Contact details: http://www.camlcity.org/contact.html
Company homepage: http://www.gerd-stolpmann.de
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