#2111: Adding PACO to LFS
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 Reporter:  spinal84     |        Owner:  [email protected]
     Type:  enhancement  |       Status:  new                          
 Priority:  low          |    Milestone:  7.0                          
Component:  Book         |      Version:  7.0                          
 Severity:  normal       |   Resolution:                               
 Keywords:               |  
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Comment (by Bryan Kadzban):

 Replying to [comment:17 spinal84]:
 > Replying to [comment:14 Bryan Kadzban]:
 >
 > > "hard", "complicated", and "inconvenient" are all dependent on who's
 making the decision. What's inconvenient for one person isn't necessarily
 inconvenient for everyone.
 >
 > If you want to speak grounded about hardness, convenience and complexity
 you should learn first what is paco, ok? I think you will change your mind
 about "one person/another person". Just speak about you and it will be
 truth.

 But I'm not saying that paco is bad, or good, or whatever.  I'm saying
 that having *any* specific package management scheme in the book
 instructions is not necessarily a good idea.

 How well paco works for me (or for you, for that matter) is irrelevant.
 Let's just say we have ten editors that use five different package
 management schemes when they build the book -- I don't know if this is
 true, but it's probably not very far off.  If the book contains no
 package-manager stuff at all, and all ten editors have to do something on
 top of the instructions to get their package manager setup to work, then
 the testing that they do is still valid.  Their package management scheme
 will still run the commands in the book, and any bugs in the book should
 be discoverable.

 Now if the book adopts one of these schemes, then the two editors that use
 it will still provide valid testing results.  But the other eight won't
 necessarily, because they will no longer be running what's in the book
 when they do their builds.  Specifically, if the book were to adopt RPM
 (or whatever: the specific PM doesn't matter), and a future version of rpm
 introduces a bug, or a future version of some package has a bug when used
 with rpm, then the editors that don't use RPM will never see that bug.
 Only the two editors that do use it will ever see it.

 (Not that there are necessarily two editors that use RPM.  But I think my
 point is clear: it'd be better to have all the editors using the PM in the
 book, but since I don't think that will happen, it'll be better to make a
 PM optional.)

 I do think that Bruce's idea of putting paco at the end of chapter 5 as an
 optional package, and providing instructions on how to modify the
 installation commands in chapter 6 to take advantage of it, is a good one.
 But what I '''don't''' want to do is include the paco commands in chapter
 6 itself as "part of the book".  As long as users (and editors) can choose
 something different, and still be using the book, it's fine.

 > > adding paco to the official LFS book as a '''requirement''' would mean
 that at least one editor (me), and probably a fair number of others, would
 no longer actually run the real LFS system, because they'd want to use
 whatever package management scheme (if any!) that they use today.
 >
 > I don't think the book is written mainly for their editors as a "think
 in itself". I think it's written mostly for linux community. Am I wrong?

 You're right, but keep reading: I was saying that if the editors don't use
 what's in the book, then they're not testing the book.  :-)

 > > I don't think that's good for testing; especially not for testing
 paco-related issues.  :-)
 >
 > What are you speaking about? If you know any paco-related issues why
 don't you report em?

 I don't know of any.  That doesn't mean there are none, though, or that
 including paco will automatically trivially work on everyone's system.
 (See the above comments on a hypothetical choice of RPM.)  If none of the
 editors use it today, I don't think many of them will want to start, which
 means they won't be testing the full book contents.

 Now, there are still users, and there are still bugreports, but it's
 easier for everyone concerned if the bug never gets into the book in the
 first place (because the editor making a version change has done a test of
 the new system, and saw the bug there).

 > > I'm not sure about anyone else, but I don't want to use it because I
 already have a package management system (that '''isn't''' paco) that I
 want to keep using.  I don't think I'd ever heard of paco before this
 ticket was created, actually.  :-)
 >
 > Good point. But maybe first give it a try before making grounded
 conclusions? Maybe it's not so bad ? :-)

 If what I'm using works, and provides everything I need it to provide,
 then why go adopt some different system?  :-)

 > BTW why do you hesitate to point concretely what your favourite package
 management system is?

 Partly because its designer has more or less disappeared now (the hint has
 been adopted, but I'm not sure how that will pan out), but mostly because
 it's irrelevant.  My only point is that it's not paco, and I don't want to
 go through the work of learning another setup when it won't actually get
 me anything new that I need.

 > If you need etherboot then grub is useless for you. If you prefer nano
 you don't need vim. If you need some kind of editor - use sed, it rocks.
 Is my idea clear?

 Sort of.  But are you saying that we should introduce a '''new''' required
 package because certain other packages have alternatives (even ones that
 work better in certain not-as-common cases)?  I don't exactly follow that
 logic.  (Optional would be OK with me, but not required.)

 Sysvinit is there because we need '''some''' kind of /sbin/init.  There
 are alternatives called out in the book if you want to use something
 different (or at least there were, although I can't find them anymore;
 were the references to BSD init and depinit removed?), but you need to do
 something.  We haven't needed a package manager yet, mostly because the
 prevailing wisdom seems to be that LFS is not a distro.

 > > ...and besides, vim was in the book when Gerard first wrote it.
 >
 > Do you really think it's a good point? What about this: ...and besides,
 lilo was in the book when Gerard first wrote it. Gerard is not here. And
 why you think Gerard wouldn't like paco?

 I have no idea what he would like, as I am not him.  I was simply
 explaining why vim is still present: it was always there, and there hasn't
 been a real need to remove it.

 But introducing a new package is rather different than removing one that's
 already present...

 (See also the
 [http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/development/chapter06/pkgmgt.html
 package management] section in the book.  Especially the "Some reasons why
 no package manager is mentioned in LFS or BLFS include:" part.  :-) )

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