[CFT] packaging the base system with pkg(8)

[Allan Jude]

On 2016-04-20 01:12, Daniel Eischen wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Apr 2016, Russell L. Carter wrote:
>>
>> What is missing from this debate is some perspective from the POV of
>> actually existing packaging systems.  I've been maintaining
>> debian-stable + debian-testing systems for over 15 years.  The number
>> of packaging glitches I've had I can count on one hand.  (I've been
>> running FreeBSD systems since the *very* beginning.)
>>
>> It is much easier to maintain my debian systems than my FreeBSD
>> systems.  Actually, pkg + poudriere is like a dream.  Better than
>> apt-get, actually.  Except right now it doesn't maintain the base
>> system.
>>
>> So, how many packages are actually installed on one of my debian
>> boxes?
>>
>> debian-testing box with fvwm (ie no gnome/kde) userland:
>>
>> rcarter at aristotle> dpkg --list | wc --lines
>> 1571
>>
>> FreeBSD-10/stable with the same userland packaged from ports:
>>
>> rcarter at feyerabend> pkg info | wc -l
>>     833
>>
>> The debian system, for basically identical functionality, installs 738
>> more packages.  Obviously the FreeBSD box has no packages for the base
>> system, so that is probably a significant part of the difference in
>> installed packages.  And the debian box is dramatically easier to
>> maintain.  I typically will drag a debian box across several debian
>> release cycles, i.e., 6+ years, w/o ever doing anything more
>> complicated than doing apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade every week
>> or so.
> 
> For one of our Solaris 11 boxes, which also serves as a VNC
> thin client server and NFS server, we have:
> 
>   [sol11] $ pkg list | wc -l
>      968
> 
> That server includes the gnome desktop, firefox, thunderbird,
> perl, python, wireshark, CDR tools, etc.  So arguably, it is
> comparable to my FreeBSD desktop at home with KDE, firefox,
> thunderbird, and similar tools.  For that FreeBSD box, and
> just for ports packages (since I don't have base pkg'd):
> 
>   [freebsd11] $ pkg info | wc -l
>      865
> 
> [And it really bothers me that FreeBSD 'pkg list' behaves
>  like 'pkg files' or similar should.  It seems intuitive
>  that 'pkg list' should list the packages, not all the files
>  in all the packages.]
> 
> If you add in 750+ FreeBSD base packages (1600+), that seems
> like a very large number of packages.  And upgrading ports
> packages is not always painless.  For the 865 FreeBSD packages
> I have installed, only 27 of them are explicit - the rest are
> dependencies.  I do not look forward to updating my packages,
> even with poudriere.  There is usually manual intervention
> required.  So it is with this experience that I do sort of
> cringe at having 750+ FreeBSD base packages.
> 
> I do like maintaining Solaris 11 boxes much better with their
> pkg management, much better than the old patchadm.
> 

does 'pkg prime-list' give you watch you are looking for? (pkgs you
explicitly installed)

-- 
Allan Jude