On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 11:08 AM, Ceri Davies <ceri at submonkey.net> wrote: > On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 10:34:38AM -0500, Shawn Walker wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 10:16 AM, Ceri Davies <ceri at submonkey.net> > wrote: > > > On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 09:30:32PM -0700, John Plocher wrote: > > > > > > > The IPS/pkg repository and associated packaging system must > > > > have the following abilities: > > > > > > > > 1. It must allow packages to be tagged with an "expectation > > > > level" taken from the (evolving) set of > > > > [Sandbox, Prototype, Experimental, Preferred, Core] > > > > 2. It must treat these expectation levels as namespace > > > > qualifiers, such that packages of the same name may > > > > coexist in a repository with different expectation levels > > > > 3. It must allow the user to select which expectation > > > > level(s) to choose packages from for installation > > > > I'm rather uncomfortable with the attempts here to seemingly codify > > "as a rule", the capabilities of a software product (ips in this > > case). > > So design of the system is undesirable? > > > > > 4. It must allow for some mechanism for a build to be > > > reproduced exactly at any given future time, whether > > > that be explicit versioning and infinite retention, > > > or preferably just allowing users to clone and retain > > > versioned repositories on local optical media as well > > > as on "the network". > > > > > > The idea that everything I need to rebuild a system may not be available > > > is worrying. > > > > As nice as that would be to have, I don't think it is a realistic > requirement. > > I think you've misunderstood me. Bart Smaalders suggested that most of > what comes with Solaris now may now longer be provided on optical media, > but rather would be delivered from the network repository. Given that > statement, I am concerned that should I need to build a new system to > match a system I already have installed that I should be able to do so.
I misunderstood what you meant by "rebuild" -- I thought you meant *recompile* all the software on the system :-) Imaging an entire system for re-deployment elsewhere seems outside the realm of the packaging system and better suited to distribution construction or other tools. If you're talking about "rollback to a previous software state"; then ips will have that via ZFS integration. > > The packaging system is there to deliver software; nothing else. > > If there isn't a way to tell that packaging system to get the same bits > that it got yesterday again, then it is of no use. Do you mean literally, "get the same bits you got yesterday?" As in, download exactly the same packages you downloaded yesterday, again? Your requirement isn't clearly defined enough yet for me to fully understand what you mean by "get the same bits you got yesterday." > > If you are instead stating that the repository must contain all > > versions of software ever produced so that you can reproduce the > > entire contents of "Solaris Next Release 4", that seems to be outside > > the scope of ARC and better related to Sun's support policies, etc. > > We're talking in the context of Solaris Next, as I understand it. If > the repository software is unable to deliver the functionality, then Sun > will likely find it hard to provide no matter how much I pay them. I'm still confused as to why software requirements are being proposed to ARC instead of pkg-discuss. Cheers, -- Shawn Walker "To err is human -- and to blame it on a computer is even more so." - Robert Orben
