Nicolas Williams wrote:
b) User images can run, either concurrently or at different times, on
systems running different OS versions.
Clearly the same is not true of system images.
We've been assuming thus far that a user image only runs on one OS/ISA
type although this is not enforced. If you wanted to have an application
installed for multiple platforms in your user directory, you would need
multiple user images, one for each platform type.
We've also been assuming that for platform-specific packages,
manipulation of the image only happens from the platform for the image.
Specifically, the user-agent header that is sent by the client is used
to determine which platform-specific repository to use when installing
packages. Now that we have fat package support, I'd like to see this
changed. The image should have a variant for the platform type
(including the OS as well as the ISA), and that should be used to select
the files to install. The variant would then identify the platform for
the image. This would allow, for example, running pkg(1) on
Solaris/SPARC to manipulate a Solaris/x86 or Linux user image.
Supporting multi-platform user image would mean changing the OS/ISA into
a facet rather than a variant. That represents a significant change for
most software (not just the packaging system).
Tom
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