freebsd stable - Dec 2007 - [RFC/P] Port System Re-Engineering (Repost from -ports@)

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[Repost from -ports@]

As has been hashed out in -ports@ over the last few days there is at
least a need to examine weither or not the current ports system should
remain as is or potentially be re-engineered in the future (estimates
if and when needed vary from ASAP to 10-15 years).   I have
volunteered to undertake a feasibility/pilot project to examine what
changes (if any) are needed in the system (for the purposes of this
thread I will not venture any of my own suggestions).   I have the
following broad questions for people:

1. What is more important to your personal use of FreeBSD (the ports
system, the underlaying OS, some other aspect)?

2. How frequently do you interact with the ports systems and what is
the most common interaction you have with it?

3. What is the single best aspect of the current system?

4. What is the single worst aspect of the current system?

5. If you where a new FreeBSD user how would your answers above
change?   If you where brand new to UNIX how whould they change?

6. Assuming that there was no additional work on your behalf would you
use a new system if it corrected your answer to number 4?

7. Same as question 6 but for your answer on question 3?

8. How long have you used FreeBSD and/or UNIX in general?

9.  That is your primary use(s) for your FreeBSD machine(s) (name upto 3)?

10. Assuming there is no functional difference what is your preferred
installation method for 3rd party software?

11. On a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the best) please rate the
importance of the following aspects of the ports system?

       a. User Interface
       b. Consistency of behaviors and interactions
       c. Accuracy in dependant port installations
       d. Internal record keeping
       e. Granularity's of the port management system

12. Please rate your personal technical skill level?

- --
Aryeh M. Friedman
FloSoft Systems
Developer, not business, friendly
http://www.flosoft-systems.com
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>
>
> 7. Same as question 6 but for your answer on question 3?
This should read:

7. If the new system corrected the worst aspect of the current system
but broke the best aspect of it would you use the new system?
- --
Aryeh M. Friedman
FloSoft Systems
Developer, not business, friendly
http://www.flosoft-systems.com
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Aryeh M. Friedman wrote:
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>
> [Repost from -ports@]
>
> As has been hashed out in -ports@ over the last few days there is at
> least a need to examine weither or not the current ports system should
> remain as is or potentially be re-engineered in the future (estimates
> if and when needed vary from ASAP to 10-15 years).   I have
> volunteered to undertake a feasibility/pilot project to examine what
> changes (if any) are needed in the system (for the purposes of this
> thread I will not venture any of my own suggestions).   I have the
> following broad questions for people:
>
> 1. What is more important to your personal use of FreeBSD (the ports
> system, the underlaying OS, some other aspect)?
>
>   
Underlying OS.
> 2. How frequently do you interact with the ports systems and what is
> the most common interaction you have with it?
>
>   
Daily.  Updating.
> 3. What is the single best aspect of the current system?
>
>   
Easy to implement ports.
> 4. What is the single worst aspect of the current system?
>
>   
Slow rebuild of portupgrade database (much improved in recent
versions).
> 5. If you where a new FreeBSD user how would your answers above
> change?   If you where brand new to UNIX how whould they change?
>   
In my experience, people from a Windoze background don't understand 
dependencies at all.  Everything "just happens" under the hood during 
the install.  This gives the impression that installing software works 
better under Windoze, but this impression is false.  Dependency bugs (in 
the form of inconsistent/out-dated DLLs) have been a source of 
instability since the beginning.
> 6. Assuming that there was no additional work on your behalf would you
> use a new system if it corrected your answer to number 4?
>
>   
Yes.
> 7. Same as question 6 but for your answer on question 3?
>
>   
However, to be acceptable, porting software into the build environment 
as to be at least as easy as it is now.  In fact, porting is far more 
important than installing.
> 8. How long have you used FreeBSD and/or UNIX in general?
>
>   
This is my 8th year.
> 9.  That is your primary use(s) for your FreeBSD machine(s) (name upto 3)?
>
>   
Development, port maintenance, writing (desktop
applications).
> 10. Assuming there is no functional difference what is your preferred
> installation method for 3rd party software?
>
>   
In the best of all possible worlds, installs would be self-contained 
(they would install correctly on the target with no intervention from 
the user).  In the real world, I want 3rd party software to follow the 
ports system (whatever it may be).  If 3rd part software does NOT track 
the ports systems, all manner of difficult-to-debug bugs will
propagate.
> 11. On a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the best) please rate the
> importance of the following aspects of the ports system?
>
>        a. User Interface
>   
a => 4 (but see GNOME, KDE, and Webmin)
>        b. Consistency of behaviors and interactions
>   
b => 8
>        c. Accuracy in dependant port installations
>   
c => 10
>        d. Internal record keeping
>   
d => 6
>        e. Granularity's of the port management system
>   
e => 8
> 12. Please rate your personal technical skill level?
>
>   
High.
> - --
> Aryeh M. Friedman
> FloSoft Systems
> Developer, not business, friendly
> http://www.flosoft-systems.com
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On Mon, Dec 03, 2007 at 09:19:15AM -0500, Aryeh M. Friedman
wrote:
> 1. What is more important to your personal use of FreeBSD (the ports
> system, the underlaying OS, some other aspect)?
Yes.  (i.e., mu)
> 2. How frequently do you interact with the ports systems and what is
> the most common interaction you have with it?
Slightly more than weekly.  Updating.
> 3. What is the single best aspect of the current system?
Most of what I want to use is in there, and builds and installs without
fault or clashes.
> 4. What is the single worst aspect of the current system?
A toss-up between
- inability to cross-build (not entirely fixable by ports, I
  know, but I'm sure that *some* ports would be buildable with
  appropriate cross-tools, and there's some chance that that set
  would include the pieces I'm interested in...) and
- library dependencies don't extend to the base system.  I've just spent
a
  week un-breaking my GNOME environment after upgrading to 7-STABLE from
  6-STABLE (which worked, as did all my existing ports) and then
  portupgrading (which broke nearly everything, because of the upgraded
  system libc.so, libz.so and libpthread.so->libthr.so, resulting in
  applications that depended on both old and new base libraries).  A
  corollary of this is that portupgrade -af is not restartable if
  something breaks or requires manual intervention, which results in
  quadratic rebuild time, unless the whole process is managed manually.
> 5. If you where a new FreeBSD user how would your answers above
> change?   If you where brand new to UNIX how whould they change?
No idea.  I haven't been a new FreeBSD user for a long time.  If I were a
new UNIX user, I might hope that things would work as they do in MacOS-X,
and probably would prefer to use a GUI interface to pre-built packages,
rather than the ports system at all.  [That being the case, it's *most*
important that the ports system be useful for the package-building farm.]
> 6. Assuming that there was no additional work on your behalf would you
> use a new system if it corrected your answer to number 4?
Probably, but there are other aspects of ports that I like.  I *like* that
it's made out of make, and can be coerced into doing things *my* way, with
little effort.  At least I have the fall-back of using the NetBSD pkgsrc
system.  It is mostly Ports with some additional sophistication for
portability.
> 7. Same as question 6 but for your answer on question 3?
No.  If you break 3, you lose me to pkgsrc.
> 8. How long have you used FreeBSD and/or UNIX in general?
FreeBSD since '94, BSD since '85 or '86.
> 9.  That is your primary use(s) for your FreeBSD machine(s) (name upto 3)?
Workstation (software dev.), production CVS/Perforce/Web server,
experimental audio server.
> 10. Assuming there is no functional difference what is your preferred
> installation method for 3rd party software?
Ports.
> 11. On a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the best) please rate the
> importance of the following aspects of the ports system?
> 
>        a. User Interface
1 (it has a user interface?)
>        b. Consistency of behaviors and interactions
8
>        c. Accuracy in dependant port installations
8
>        d. Internal record keeping
4 (this is only a performance issue)
>        e. Granularity's of the port management system
mu (without having seen the discussion, I don't understand the question.)
> 12. Please rate your personal technical skill level?
Competent.

Cheers,

-- 
Andrew

Aryeh M. Friedman wrote:
> 1. What is more important to your personal use of FreeBSD (the ports
> system, the underlaying OS, some other aspect)?
>   
> 2. How frequently do you interact with the ports systems and what is
> the most common interaction you have with it?
>   
Portupgrade a few times a month
> 3. What is the single best aspect of the current system?
>   
Installed ports are configurally very similar to the source distribution 
(no renamed config files etc), so it's easy to get support from the 
community.
> 4. What is the single worst aspect of the current system?
>   
I find it difficult to downgrade installed ports.
> 5. If you where a new FreeBSD user how would your answers above
> change?   If you where brand new to UNIX how whould they change?
>   
Not sure.
> 6. Assuming that there was no additional work on your behalf would you
> use a new system if it corrected your answer to number 4?
>   
I think so.
> 7. Same as question 6 but for your answer on question 3?
>   
I think not.
> 8. How long have you used FreeBSD and/or UNIX in general?
>   
FreeBSD since 2003.
> 9.  That is your primary use(s) for your FreeBSD machine(s) (name upto 3)?
>   
Firewall, development, misc
> 10. Assuming there is no functional difference what is your preferred
> installation method for 3rd party software?
>   
Ports
> 11. On a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the best) please rate the
> importance of the following aspects of the ports system?
>
>        a. User Interface                               *5*
>        b. Consistency of behaviors and interactions    *7*
>        c. Accuracy in dependant port installations     *8*
>        d. Internal record keeping                      *6*
>        e. Granularity's of the port management system  *?*
>
> 12. Please rate your personal technical skill level?
>   
Average

-- 
Andreas

Aryeh M. Friedman wrote:
> [Repost from -ports@]
> 
> As has been hashed out in -ports@ over the last few days there is at
> least a need to examine weither or not the current ports system should
> remain as is or potentially be re-engineered in the future (estimates
> if and when needed vary from ASAP to 10-15 years).   I have
> volunteered to undertake a feasibility/pilot project to examine what
> changes (if any) are needed in the system (for the purposes of this
> thread I will not venture any of my own suggestions).   I have the
> following broad questions for people:
> 
> 1. What is more important to your personal use of FreeBSD (the ports
> system, the underlaying OS, some other aspect)?
Software builds correct and is present.  Including a way to make my own
custom packages for distribution.
> 
> 2. How frequently do you interact with the ports systems and what is
> the most common interaction you have with it?
Daily, updating, and maintaining the ports tree itself.
> 
> 3. What is the single best aspect of the current system?
Its source based and re-uses and existing language (make) instead of
inventing a new one.
> 
> 4. What is the single worst aspect of the current system?
Most ports don't deal well with multiple versions. Even apache which is
versioned doesn't do it that well.
> 
> 5. If you where a new FreeBSD user how would your answers above
> change?   If you where brand new to UNIX how whould they change?
I'd want a gui and not to compile anything.
> 
> 6. Assuming that there was no additional work on your behalf would you
> use a new system if it corrected your answer to number 4?
Quite possibly.
> 
> 7. Same as question 6 but for your answer on question 3?
(that doesn't make sense -- if you corrected the single best aspect of
ports?)
> 
> 8. How long have you used FreeBSD and/or UNIX in general?
since 2.2.8 ~1998
> 
> 9.  That is your primary use(s) for your FreeBSD machine(s) (name upto 3)?
Desktop
Development (SVN, imap, you name it)
Production (FAMP stacks)
> 
> 10. Assuming there is no functional difference what is your preferred
> installation method for 3rd party software?
source compilation -- except for things like Xorg, Firefox and
Thunrderbird because they are just so darn big.
> 
> 11. On a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the best) please rate the
> importance of the following aspects of the ports system?
> 
>        a. User Interface
7
>        b. Consistency of behaviors and interactions
5
>        c. Accuracy in dependant port installations
7
>        d. Internal record keeping
4
>        e. Granularity's of the port management system
6
> 
> 12. Please rate your personal technical skill level?
Very High -- Professional System Admin


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-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Philip M. Gollucci (philip@ridecharge.com)
o:703.549.2050x206
Senior System Admin - Riderway, Inc.
http://riderway.com / http://ridecharge.com
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love like you'll never get hurt,
and dance like nobody's watching.

Aryeh M. Friedman wrote:
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> Hash: SHA1
> 
> [Repost from -ports@]
> 
> As has been hashed out in -ports@ over the last few days there is at
> least a need to examine weither or not the current ports system should
> remain as is or potentially be re-engineered in the future (estimates
> if and when needed vary from ASAP to 10-15 years).   I have
> volunteered to undertake a feasibility/pilot project to examine what
> changes (if any) are needed in the system (for the purposes of this
> thread I will not venture any of my own suggestions).   I have the
> following broad questions for people:
> 
> 1. What is more important to your personal use of FreeBSD (the ports
> system, the underlaying OS, some other aspect)?
Mu. For me, the OS is nothing without the port, and vice-versa.
> 2. How frequently do you interact with the ports systems and what is
> the most common interaction you have with it?
Daily. Updating, building for jails.
> 3. What is the single best aspect of the current system?
For normal, day-to-day work on servers, it Just Works.
> 4. What is the single worst aspect of the current system?
Compiling takes forever, especially on small-scale machines.
> 5. If you where a new FreeBSD user how would your answers above
> change?   If you where brand new to UNIX how whould they change?
A GUI would really help to get an overview and manage simple tasks.
> 6. Assuming that there was no additional work on your behalf would you
> use a new system if it corrected your answer to number 4?
Yes.
> 7. Same as question 6 but for your answer on question 3?
No.
> 8. How long have you used FreeBSD and/or UNIX in general?
Five years.
> 9.  That is your primary use(s) for your FreeBSD machine(s) (name upto 3)?
Home server (mail, web, file), software development, small-scale production.
> 10. Assuming there is no functional difference what is your preferred
> installation method for 3rd party software?
pkg_add to cut install time, but usually ports tree because of missing 
options in precompiled packages (e.g. no-gui vim, php5 with apache module).
> 11. On a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being the best) please rate the
> importance of the following aspects of the ports system?
> 
>        a. User Interface
5
>        b. Consistency of behaviors and interactions
9
>        c. Accuracy in dependant port installations
8
>        d. Internal record keeping
8
>        e. Granularity's of the port management system
5
> 12. Please rate your personal technical skill level?
Medium.

Erik