New FreeBSD package system (a.k.a. Daemon Package System (dps))

[Mike Meyer]

In <86zm48ziks.fsf at dwp.des.no>, Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des at des.no> typed:
> Mike Meyer <mwm-keyword-freebsdhackers2.e313df at mired.org> writes:
> > Moving the OS into the package system has been on the "todo" list for
> > a long time (assuming it's still there - there are people opposed to
> > that).
> It has *never* been on the todo list.

Might depend on whose list you're thinking about. I'm pretty sure it
was on the list for the sysinstall rewrite, but that project has been
dead long enough that I can't find any of the docs to check if my
memory was playing tricks on me or not.

> > How would setting LOCALBASE=/usr break this? Of course, equally valid
> > is the question "what will break if I set LOCALBASE=/usr"? Hmm. I
> > think I may found out....
> For one, man pages for ports will end up in the wrong place (/usr/man
> instead of /usr/share/man).

Is this really "broken"? If so, are you sure it's not ports installing
in ${LOCALBASE}/man instead of ${LOCALBASE}/share/man that's broken?

A number of ports seem to depend on the directory tree in ${LOCALBASE}
existing - ${LOCALBASE}/man/... and ${LOCALBASE}/etc, in
particular. They use the INSTALL macros to point single files at
directories, which macro will quite happily create a file with the
target name if it's not a directory. This creates a number of
interesting problems later on.

Trying to use WITH_OPENSSL_BASE on ports that need an SSL library is
interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if there were other, similar
problems elsewhere.

	<mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>		http://www.mired.org/consulting.html
Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.