Quoting Paul Boddie (2019-05-27 18:43:39) > On Monday 27. May 2019 15.25.00 Jonas Smedegaard wrote: > > > > Wauw! Probably the first ever review of Boxer :-) > > Probably not a fair one, though... > > > Yes, I think it is an accurate description. As for "[not] much of > > immediate use" I believe it stems from being about reusable patterns > > - so if the project at hand cannot benefit from any of the existing > > patterns (in package boxer-data) then it is _more_ work, not less, > > to use Boxer if measured by that one project alone. > > I didn't realise (or see) that there was a boxer-data package. Looking > at it again, it does seem like a framework for writing deployment > recipes by defining the nature of nodes (specific systems) in terms of > classes (kinds of systems, described in terms of physical > characteristics and other capabilities). > > It seems that the work performed is focused on installing packages, > although I also see that there are "tweaks" which allow shell commands > to be used where packages would presumably need extra configuration. I > don't have any real familiarity with "orchestration" type solutions, > but it gives me the same kind of impression. > > I imagine that Boxer would be useful in preparing images to deploy on > devices like those discussed on this list, which I suppose isn't too > far off from things like FreedomBox, presumably the original target of > this work.
Thanks again for looking at Boxer. Your understanding also here is accurate (phew - I know the documentation is really bad). Correct, main use of Boxer is handling package choices. Reason is that the aim is to support "Debian Blends" - i.e. systems defined by how packages are installed not how the system is afterwards tweaked. Ideally, Boxer does the same as debian-installer but from a separate host (contrary to debian-installer which operates on the target host). Therefore "tweaks" is a discouraged concept, even though often crucial at first, because any tweak is expected to be pushed "upstream" into relevant Debian packages. When perfect - i.e. when no tweaks are needed - you have a so-called "Debian Pure Blend": https://wiki.debian.org/DebianPureBlends#Terminology Correct, Boxer began as a generic tool for bootstrapping FreedomBox and similar systems created as direct competitor to a specific-purpose shell script emerging in 2011 to bootstrap Freedombox: Some of us FreedomBox developers met in person after a year of getting nowhere concrete with the project, Bdale Garbee worked on the specific-purpose script, I set out to make a proper tool but Bdale was quite sceptical, arguing that would take years. Here we are 7.5 years later and Boxer still cannot do the tasks of the special-purpose script (which used vmdebootstrap, btw). Boxer was first used for Debian Parl, a system for independent parliamentarians used in a pilot project at the European Parliament. Boxer is most recently used for https://box.redpill.dk/ which is sort-of a stepping-stone for https://solidbox.org/ - my (future) competitor for FreedomBox. - Jonas -- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private
signature.asc
Description: signature
_______________________________________________ Community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goldelico.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/community http://www.tinkerphones.org
