> Since Gentoo is compile based, the USE flags > generally are directly > transfered to configure options. For example, if you > wanted to install > MySQL with '--with-big-tables' you can simply specify > the > USE='big-tables' USE flag and everything's taken care > of for you. I > can't imagine how much complexity that would add to > packaging creation > but I'd love it if someone chipped in.
That model can work for Gentoo because currently most of the software is availabel in source code form and developed on Linux with GCC, so it compiles on Linux and with GCC most of the time. Binary stuff can't be controlled in this way, unless special provisions have been made, such as multiple versions of the same binary delivered. On Solaris, this model breaks in horrible, disgusting and frustrating ways, through no fault of Solaris, I should add. It's the "it works for me, just release it, and if it doesn't work for you, either fix it yourself or switch to Linux" mentality. But going back to "USE" flags, Solaris has something similar to that, and it's called /usr/lib/isaexec. Basically it allows one to provide binaries that are optimized and compiled to a very specific CPU ISA (such as sparcv8plus, sparcv9+vis, ultraT1, amd64, i386, ...) The compiled binaries end up in /opt/something/bin/sparcv8plus/, /opt/something/bin/sparcv9+vis, ..., and then you either hard link /opt/something/binary to /usr/lib/isaexec, or copy /usr/lib/isaexec to /opt/something/bin/binary. That's it! From that point on, the correct optimized binary is executed depending the architecture it is started on. The problem here is not that Solaris can't deliver or doesn't have the functionality Linux has. Oh, it has the functionality and then some! In fact, it had this advanced functionality for years and years and years. The real problem is, people just don't want to sit down, warm up the chair, and read the documentation. It's gets worse than that: people don't stop and ask themselves "hey, does an equivalent already exist in System V or Solaris? What is it? Where can I read up on it?" This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
