http://www.osnews.com/story/18792/Ten_Years_of_pkgsrc Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:06:56 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?279353 http://osnews.com/thread?279353 Quite a good selection of interviews that provides lots of information about the current state and the future of software management especially (but not only) in BSD operating systems. Recommended reading for anyone interested in software and package management solutions.

Also, despite personally being a loyal Ubuntu, Debian and thus apt-get/aptitude/Synaptic/dpkg user for many years, I find pkgsrc very nice and advanced too. No wonder that also some Linux distros have started using and experimenting with pkgsrc too. Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (irbis) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?279372 http://osnews.com/thread?279372 When you can upgrade an entire system as easily as with

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

pkgsrc might be worth something. Then again, I'm blatantly against the myriad of package management systems that exist for UNIX/Linux. A single standard would go a long way in my book. Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (DevL) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?279381 http://osnews.com/thread?279381 Sorry, i'm biased here.
For me it is "apt-shred dist-chainsaw".
Pkgjam sounds interestig ;-) Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sophotect) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?279382 http://osnews.com/thread?279382 Pkgsrc is available for many platforms; Linux, all the BSDs, Mac OS X, Interix, QNX and Solaris. Seems pretty universal to me. Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zizban) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?279384 http://osnews.com/thread?279384 I noticed that a linux distribution (Draco Linux - www.dracolinux.org) uses pkgsrc. Does this means that Draco could use the NetBSD's repository of source code? Or would they have to maintain their own repository? Fri, 19 Oct 2007 22:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Excel Hearts Choi) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?279386 http://osnews.com/thread?279386 pkgsrc is not a source code repository,
pkgsrc is an entire package system created with a lot of makefiles, those makefiles are in charge to download the source code from its original repositories, compile them and install them.

DragonFly [another BSD OS] uses pkgsrc as its main package system and, thus, uses the same pkgsrc tree found in ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub; so, I think DracoLinux must use the same approach. Fri, 19 Oct 2007 22:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ebasconp) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?279396 http://osnews.com/thread?279396 Thanks for clearing that up for me. Fri, 19 Oct 2007 23:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Excel Hearts Choi) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?279397 http://osnews.com/thread?279397 The problem lies not in the multiplicity of package managers, but in the multiplicity of package trees and the way those trees are generated.

For example, if you could automatically transform Gentoo's Portage tree into a Debian repository and vice-versa, the choice of which package manager to use would be irrelevant. Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sodki) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?279398 http://osnews.com/thread?279398 A single standard like ... Windows? Choice avoids crap :-) Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Oliver) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?279401 http://osnews.com/thread?279401 You could do it of course, physically, but the difference is of course the package management system *and* the repository.Because the latter reflects the idea behind an operating system. No one using e.g. Gentoo would be happy with apt-get/aptitude, nobody at FreeBSD would be for example happy with some patches in Gentoo and so on. It's more than just a different software, it's sometimes a philosophy in terms of quality, freedom, KISS, whatever else. Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Oliver) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?279429 http://osnews.com/thread?279429 No one using e.g. Gentoo would be happy with apt-get/aptitude, nobody at FreeBSD would be for example happy with some patches in Gentoo and so on.

Maybe, but there is also a lot of duplicate work going on. E.g. I know people who package for RPM systems, but also look at Debian packages/patches/bug reports frequently. I suppose that happens the other way around as well.

It would be nice if at the very least bugs and patches could be tracked easily cross-distribution or cross-system. Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (danieldk) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?279471 http://osnews.com/thread?279471 # pkg_chk -u

"is the same as"

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

The difference is,of course, the compilation. Sat, 20 Oct 2007 22:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Aeko) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?279482 http://osnews.com/thread?279482 It would be nice if at the very least bugs and patches could be tracked easily cross-distribution or cross-system.

I believe Debian's bts-link is a step in the right direction.
http://bts-link.alioth.debian.org/

It allows one to track Bugzilla, SourceForge, Savannah, Trac, Mantis, Gnats, RT from Debian BTS. No, I don't think Launchpad is the right idea, due to its centralized nature.

Full disclosure: I'm one of bts-link developers.Edited 2007-10-21 01:00 Sun, 21 Oct 2007 00:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (saxiyn) Comments