Ideas for Improving pkgsrc
Dieter Baron < dillo@NetBSD.org >
Things pkgsrc Does Well
- building packages from source
- tweak the build of packages (options &c)
- available binary packages for default settings
(for some platforms)
Things pkgsrc Doesn't Do Quite as Well
- create binary packages for non-default settings
- mix old and new packages, use old packages to build new ones
- ease of use, especially for newcomers
Improve pkg_install
- move common INSTALL snippets to pkg_install
- no @commands in PLIST
- consider all affected packages at once
- remove unneeded automatically installed packages (pkg_delete)
- make use of pkg_summary, check feasibility of operation first
- rc.d scripts: don't require variable setting in rc.config
Improve Maintainability
- restructure pkgsrc guide to make binary-only users first class citizens
- easy, documented, and supported way to update installed packages
- update bootstrap packages
- easy, documented way to set up and maintain pbulk
- move binary packages out of All directory
Build More Packages
- pbulk: build binary packages for multiple options settings
- better locators, PKGPATH insufficient
(We build multiple packages from one directory.)
- sub-packages
Improve pkgsrc
- make infrastructure easier to hack on
- move list of dependencies to buildlink into package
- fix open-ended dependencies
- PROVIDES/REQUIRES
- minimum backwards compatible version
- remove minimum required version from buildlink3.mk
- stop revision bump on shared library major change
- test dependencies (installed before test target is run)