Edward Middleton <emiddle...@bebear.net> wrote: > Achim Schneider wrote: > > Edward Middleton <emiddle...@bebear.net> wrote: > > > > > >>> ghc 6.8.3 is /usr/bin/ghc on my office Mac, but nothing in the > >>> world prevents there being some other program called ghc that > >>> would also like to be there. Only by painstaking verification of > >>> a whole bunch of applications together can one be confident of > >>> "safety". > >> Well then I guess we agree, so the question becomes who should do > >> the painstaking verification. I think distribution maintainers > >> should do this, you think end users who can't compile source > >> packages should do this. > >> > > > Not the maintainers, but the tool. Portage doesn't install stuff if > > it would overwrite other things, records changes to files in > > e.g. /etc to be merged later (interactively, with diffs), and > > records every file it ever installed by having the package install > > itself in /var/portage/<package>/<version>. You are > > _completely_busted_ if your install script doesn't support that: > > The script runs sandboxed. > > > > Portage even registers every installed package into an empty ghc > > package database, and merges them later. It knows what it does. > > > > I can switch between different versions of packages, or different > > implementations of the same functionality (say, java-sun vs. > > java-blackdown) with eselect. > > > > In short: Don't write your own install scripts, you're bound to get > > it wrong, and/or be vastly inferior, compared to portage. > > > > But who writes the ebuild[1] ? That said, on the various system I > run I have over 100 custom ebuilds that I maintain. I can do this > because most applications have standard sane build systems that > install things in the regular places. > Yes, usually it's just a matter of writing "inherit distutils" and figuring out (still missing) dependencies. While I utterly loathe autoconf, it has its merit... being widely used.
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