On Aug 25 2002, Martin Costabel wrote:
> > For those that need newer programs available on unstable and
> > have only 128MB of RAM, life is quite difficult.
>
> True. But with OSX on 128MB of RAM, you need a lot of patience anyway :-)
Exactly. So, why not save the user some of the patience? :-)
> > So, what is the reason for the project not making more
> > packages available? Lack of horsepower for compiling the
> > packages? Lack of space for hosting the packages?
>
> Yes, both of these. Then there is the problem with some packages
> having restrictive licenses not permitting to distribute them in
> binary form.
I can understand these and I need very little non-free
software (in Debian terms).
> Plus, most importantly, lack of manpower for continually building
> and testing the compatibility of all the binary packages. Note that
> there are more than twice as many packages in unstable than in
> stable.
Ok, but during the building process, the developers have to
generate binaries and these could be signed and uploaded to
some place.
The need for a buildd is greatly reduced in comparison with
Debian, as fink is dealing mostly with one platform now.
This would also save the users the trouble of installing extra
programs that they don't know how to build.
> There are many packages in unstable that nobody else besides the
> maintainer ever compiled (or nobody ever admitted doing so).
Talking about my case in particular, I would not need anything
from the bleeding edge and at least the "testing" version of
fink would benefit from binary packages.
BTW, talking about testing, what are the rules for a package
entering the testing distribution of fink? Anything similar to
Debian's rules?
BTW#2, automated builds would help detecting problems not
present in the developer's environment.
> Some packages have known problems. All of them are in permanent
> evolution, and not all versions are always guaranteed to be
> compatible with the rest.
Yes. But this is not a problem, as the dependencies of the
.deb packages should take care of these problems.
> Imagine what a flood of complaints would break over the fink
> beginners list if somebody just made his collection of unstable
> compiled *.debs publicly available. The manpower for dealing with
> all these complaints isn't there either.
Well, I agree with that, but I don't see anything intrinsic
with the availability of binary packages here.
A sincere question: why would the compilation steps save the
developers from the "flood of complaints"?
> > I think that the former problem could easily be solved with a
> > build daemon, similar to what Debian uses, with some host
> > machines doing the hard work.
>
> Who is going to build the software and hardware infrastructure for
> this?
I have a PowerMac 9500/180MP with 64MB of RAM and 3GB of disk
here that could build some packages. I'm willing to use it for
some time to help a community effort to compile some packages.
> On the manpower side, Fink is *tiny* compared to Debian. Debian has
> probably 20 to 50 times (!) as many developers as Fink. They even
> have full-time developers. Just have a look at the debian's partners
> page http://www.debian.org/partners/ and think for a while. There is
> nothing comparable for Fink.
If things were easier and/or clearer from the docs, other
people could join the project (hint, hint). :-)
> Right now, Fink's manpower is stressed to the limit by preparing a
> new binary distribution of the *stable* tree for Mac OSX 10.1, and
> at the same time testing and updating all packages for Jaguar.
This is good. BTW, allow me to ask how are mirrors supposed to
work with Fink currently. I tried following the instructions
to mirror the binary distribution from fink.sf.net (I
obviously have a sourceforge account), but all that I mirrored
was 16MB worth of packages.
I see that the packages have currently moved, but what is the
recommended way to generate a local repository of the
packages for offline computers?
> > OTOH, another option for that would be to make a binary
> > repository (possibly with unofficial status) of
> > user-contributed (compiled) packages in form of an
> > apt-get'able source.
>
> Nobody is going to stop anyone to offer a high-bandwidth http server
> for such a thing. This is very easy to set up, and anyone can point
> their apt/sources.list file to such a server.
These projects have more chances of being succesful (and also
more meaninful) if they are centralized and are a community
effort.
> The only requirement would be to offer support, i.e. to answer all
> questions about problems with packages in the repository.
Well, see above my question about how providing binary
packages would generate more problems than source packages.
> > It would also make using fink a much more feasible option for
> > some users like me, with limited resources.
>
> You could do this also privately, if you have a friend with a DSL
> connection, for example, or just with a bigger/faster Mac. They
> could either set up an http server with a fink repository inside, or
> send you their *.deb files by mail or ftp.
Of course. But wouldn't it be better for it to be centralized
by the project?
> > Honestly, this is the biggest problem I see with fink.
>
> Maybe your problem would already be addressed by more frequent releases
> of the *stable* fink distribution.
Indeed, that would save me a lot of problems.
> Right now, the stable tree in cvs has many more packages than the
> last 0.4.0a binary release, and almost all packages have been
> updated to newer versions since. Therefore a new binary release is
> overdue, and it will indeed appear soon.
Is there any help needed, as the "manpower is stressed to the
limit"? :-) Perhaps the effort of compilation could be
distributed? :-) (And packages signed, to guarantee they are
sane).
> The question of more frequent releases of the stable tree has also
> been discussed and everybody is all for it, but once again it's a
> problem of manpower.
See above. :-)
[]s, Roger...
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Rog�rio Brito - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.ime.usp.br/~rbrito
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