On Tue, Oct 16, 2001 at 04:12:44AM -0700, Andrew Sharp wrote: > What's wrong with Solaris' package system? I found in two seconds a > web site with a large number of the most common packages used in > linux and freebsd packaged for Solaris package system. They worked > great and I didn't have to spend precious time porting a package > system meant for some other operating system.
Well, first off, I don't think my Solaris 7 boxes came with anything in /usr/local/pkg, or maybe I misunderstand. I used sunfreeware.com quite a bit right when I first got the systems, but (as I recall, and I could definitely be wrong or have had something else out of place) gcc looked like a cross-compiler to some ./configure scripts, I never managed to get some of the high-end stuff like gimp to work at all, a few packages like mpage had defaults that I didn't like, and /usr/local just started to become a serious mess between sunfreeware's packages, my own builds of various packages, and local scripts. Once I just started building my own packages, stow makes things much more manageable, for example: [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/local/bin$ ls -g perl gzip ar gcc lrwxrwxrwx 1 other 28 Oct 8 11:39 ar -> ../stow/binutils-2.11/bin/ar lrwxrwxrwx 1 other 26 Jul 25 19:31 gcc -> ../stow/gcc-2.95.3/bin/gcc lrwxrwxrwx 1 other 28 Jun 8 14:10 gzip -> ../stow/gzip-1.2.4a/bin/gzip lrwxrwxrwx 1 other 27 Jun 11 22:42 perl -> ../stow/perl-5.6.0/bin/perl If I cd to /usr/local/stow and 'stow --delete gzip-1.2.4a', then 'stow gzip-1.2.5a' (if that version ever exists), I've just upgraded gzip without having any dangling cruft in /usr/local. Plus, I can see exactly what package owns what files in /usr/local. In any case, pkg may be a valid solution, but it didn't work for me. Loic was asking for "something to take care of /usr/local/pkg and /usr/dangerous/pkg for generic and homegrew packages", and I think this fits the bill unless he's talking about precompiled packages from sunfreeware or elsewhere. -- Mike Renfro / R&D Engineer, Center for Manufacturing Research, 931 372-3601 / Tennessee Technological University -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
