On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 5:48 PM, Garrett D'Amore <[email protected]> wrote:
> > David, I agree with you on most points, especially on this: > > IPS is an Oracle only solution, really. OpenIndiana and OmniOS use it, > but the version they use diverges from Oracle. And ~0 ISVs (at least > commercial ones) distribute software in this format. > I know of at least one. (Not that I would use their software by choice.) > However, IPS is not totally without merit (and I despise it mightily): > > -) The metadata format is elegant. The fact that packages are > completely described in the manifest is a beautiful thing. (SVR4 could be > enhanced to do this.) The elimination of scripting *forced* this, and to > the end that we got rid of driver installation scripts, this is a worthy > end result. > Driver installation scripts haven't been eliminated in IPS, rather embedded permanently. As such, the underlying problem has been swept under the carpet rather than solved. > -) Elimination of patches (particularly "partial packages") is also a > worthy end result. This could trivially have been achieved with SVR4, but > IPS "forced" the issue; a technology change may well have been necessary to > overcome the significant cultural barriers that would have resisted > elimination of partial packages. > > -) The SVR4 packaging code base is a major crime scene. I know whereof > I speak -- I started the process to clean it up, and removed a fair amount > of crufty crap. But what remains may cost more to maintain then its worth. > > I'd love to see a minimalist distro take up the call to "post process" > the illumos-gate IPS manifests into SVR4 packages. > That's *exactly* what I do in Tribblix. All packages and scripts derived from Illumos are autogenerated. All the other stuff I build direct, but that's essentially trivial. (My conversion isn't yet complete, in general, It's good enough to build a working distro with, though.) -- -Peter Tribble http://www.petertribble.co.uk/ - http://ptribble.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------------------- illumos-discuss Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/182180/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/182180/21175430-2e6923be Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21175430&id_secret=21175430-6a77cda4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
