Re: Binary updates (was Re: It's not Rust, it's FreeBSD (and LLVM))

On 9/9/24 16:32, Cy Schubert wrote:
> Just because a few of us build from source doesn't mean the rest of the
> world does.

I didn't think I'd reply on any of these threads, but here I go: I (or we, at work), sometimes build from source if we need a patch applied or a test run in some setting or other. We build our own ports/packages - but *not on the target system*. So for each machine we have that builds anything from source, we have a couple hundred physical and virtual ones that use binary updates: freebsd-update and pkg.

It is *absolutely essential* to promote pkgbase to first-class citizen. If for none of the reasons discussed in these threads, simply because a coherent approach to installing and updating our systems would make our lives so, so, so! much easier! Right now, we have *three* sources of binaries to get a single jail up and running and keep it maintained:
- downloading base.txz from somewhere to create the jail template
- freebsd-update to keep host and template updated
- pkg to install and maintain 3rd party packages

This, in turn, makes it necessary to manage three different fetch, build, caching and distribution mechanisms. Yes we could use pkgbase in-house, but we need to run "official builds" for the base OS ("compliance", yuck!).

As has been said elsewhere, and I'll spell it out: Absolutely *nothing* will be lost by moving to pkgbase and making it the default distribution, installation and updating mechanism. And absolutely nothing about that would prevent anyone from doing precisely what they're doing today, in exactly the same way.

Sorry for the wall of text. There's been a lot of them lately :)

/Eirik