Garrett, > (For most of what I do, which is kernel software, SVR4 packaging works > fine.)
I'm afraid that I have to object here. :-) I can't add much to the points already made by Stephen, Bart and Dan recently other than to say there are severe limitations with the current packaging system when it comes to kernel software. SVR4 packaging may well be perfectly fine for delivering components such as a leaf driver. You might even be able to argue it's possible to fairly easily script the work necessary to call add_drv during a postinstall or rem_drv during a preremove (SUNWnvsata not withstanding). But if we're going to continue delivering innovation in an Update-like release which is supported by a vendor like Sun, the interdependencies between the various kernel pieces (and closely related components like libc, libzonecfg, libzfs, etc) call for a real change in the way we deliver bits. Perhaps it would be possible to retrofit SVR4 packages to do so but I'm not aware of how to support the complex versioning necessary. Bart has a wonderful but sobering poster that shows how complex of a system we have based on all of the sparse packages (nee patches) in Solaris 10 today. I hope we might be able to publish it at some point since as a picture, it's worth many thousands of words. dsc _______________________________________________ pkg-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/pkg-discuss
