Package management?

[Stefan Sperling]

On Thu, Sep 07, 2006 at 09:44:30PM +0100, Toby Smithe wrote:
> > I still think that sticking some hooks into the uClinux Makefiles
> > to generate ipkgs would be less painful. The question is how to do
> > this in detail, and how to limit conflicts with upstream as much as
> > possible. I guess it should mainly be implemented in new files.
> > Modifications of upstream Makefiles may be inevitable, but should
> > be kept as small as possible.
> 
> If I were to implement this, then this is probably the way I would go to
> start with. However, moving to buildroot first might make life easier in
> the future...

...given you design it so that merging new versions of upstream sources
is still as (relatively) easy as it is today.

> I was also wondering whether we should have ipkg handle dependencies. If
> so, then I would somehow need to compile a dependency tree. Any ideas?

Wouldn't you simply tell each package which other package it
depends on at package creation time? All package managers I've
seen can handle dependencies automatically only at install time.
At package creation time, you always need a human to specify
dependencies.

> > I am still fine with the current situation by the way - I don't
> > see much reason to change the build system just for the ram build.
> 
> But I'm sure users would like a repository system, especially if they
> have used Debian.

Well, tough. "If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem
starts to look like a nail." (quoting the ever-so-wise fortune program)

-- 
stefan
http://stsp.in-berlin.de                                 PGP Key: 0xF59D25F0