Le 15 juin 2012 à 17:53, Alexander Hansen a écrit :

> On 6/15/12 6:08 AM, Sébastien Maret wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> I spent most of this morning trying to install Fink on one of my colleague 
>> computer. This made me realize how complicated it is for the end-user. 
>> Pretty much everything that could get wrong actually got wrong:
>> 
>> 1 - It took us a while to get the correct XCode version for 10.6 on Apple 
>> developer website
>> 
>> 2 - When we finally got the correct version, it failed to install because of 
>> this bug:
>> http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/45841/xcode-4-2-snow-leopard-doesnt-install
>> 
>> 3 - Once we finally got Xcode installed, we installed Fink and we had to 
>> fight with proxy settings to get through my institute firewall. The default 
>> selfupdate (through rsync) would not work, and we had to switch to 
>> selfupdate-cvs.
>> 
>> 4 - We tried to build a software package (gildas) that depends on many 
>> others (gtk+2, gcc4.6) and this failed because of libraries in /usr/local
>> 
>> 5 - Now with /usr/local out of the way the compilation goes on but it will 
>> probably take a few more hours.
>> 
>> A regular user would probably had given up before having Fink working. 
>> Therefore I think need to think about ways to make this easier for the end 
>> user. 
>> 
>> We've been discussing for a long time about distributing pre-compiled 
>> packages; we use to have a binary distribution but it has not been updated 
>> since 10.5.  I understand that it is a lot of work for a single person to 
>> build all the packages to make a binary distribution. Another option would 
>> be that each package maintainer builds the package he/she maintains, signs 
>> it, and upload it on a server somewhere (that's what Debian is doing, I 
>> think). How difficult would it be  to have something similar for Fink ?
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Sébastien
>> 
> 
> 1)  We don't control Apple's servers.
> 
> 2)  I haven't seen this one, but then I'm still using Xcode 3.2.6 on 10.6.
> 
> 3)  We don't control what ports people's network admins leave open.

Of course. My point is that if we had pre-compiled binaries, users would not 
need to install Xcode. Also they would need to worry wether rsync and/or cvs 
goes through their firewall since apt-get uses http.

> 4)  We _could_  have fink complain instantly if /usr/local (maybe even
> /opt/local) is detected and refuse to build until that (those) are moved
> out of the way rather than getting down to the end and saying "oops,
> you've got stuff we don't like".  I'd be in favor of that--it wouldn't
> be too tricky to implement.

That would be great. We could even have Fink move /usr/local before compling 
stuff, and putting it back in place when done. Or perhaps it is too intrusive?

> 5) Yup.
> 
> As for the binary distribution, there are several issues to address:
> 
> I believe that signing packages might require a newer dpkg/apt.  I've
> been testing updates, but (A) they still need some fixes to be fully
> functional, (B) the person who had been working on them (Sjors) isn't
> able to devote large chunks of time, and (C) I seem to be the _only_ one
> testing them and providing feedback.
> 
> Additionally, we'd need a framework of some sort (like Debian's web of
> trust) to register all of the signatures for package contributors.
> 
> It's very rare that a maintainer controls _all_ of the packages upon
> which their package depends, so we'd also need to have a policy about
> dependencies: e.g. if I update a package in the source distribution
> that has a versioned dependency on something you just updated there, and
> you go on holiday, then what do I need to do to be able to update _my_
> package in the binary distribution?  Do I sign for _your_ package and
> upload it?  Do I have to wait for you to return?

We could have the same policy than for .info files. If the maintainer is 
contacted and does not reply within xxx days, then other package maintainers 
(and/or fink-core) are allowed to upload .deb on the server. 

> And there's the issue of the "somewhere".  In principle we could
> continue to use Sourceforge.  Based on my experience with doing fink
> releases lately the file release system is actually reasonably fast
> currently--at least for files the size of the fink source tarball.

How big is the full distribution in binary form ?

Sébastien
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