Re: Package format/management ramblingss

[Soeren D. Schulze]

Richard Stallman wrote:
>     You are in a kind of chroot environment and have the directory
>     /disk which contains the directory tree of the system.
>
>     You merge /disk/bin, /disk/sbin and /disk/home/<user>/bin to
>     /bin, which you have full access to in your environment.
>
> I am not talking about a single user's chroot environment.  I am
> talking about configuring the *whole system*'s default environment.
>
> However, having some sort of per-user customizability might be nice
> too.  Each user could have a package subdir of his home dir.

Does this mean the user ``contributes'' packages to the system?
Or does it mean the system looks different for each user, which accords
to my idea?

> You're talking about "merging" where as I have in mind virtual
> construction of various dirs and files.  Perhaps this is a scheme for
> implementing something on GNU/Linux.

What we are both talking about is construction of virtual directories
for the purpose of handling conflicting versions.
But my view was mainly influenced by the concrete problem existing in
Debian, where I noticed it:

In Debian, you have to choose between stable, testing or unstable as
the release.  Using packages from different releases at the same time
is possible either by pinning (preferring combination of releases) or
by installing them in chroot environments.
Pinning does not allow you to install conflicting versions of a
package, either, and you have to solve lots of conflicts on every
installation or upgrade.
Working in a chroot environment does not allow you to use packages from
different releases, and you have to be root for this.

My initial idea was that one works in a per-user chroot environment and  
can virtually (perhaps my former explanations were ambiguous here)  
merge installations of different releases.
But, as you showed me, most of tasks I intended to solve this way can  
be done by an intelligent package manager better.

>     You regard a conflict where two packages provide the same file?
>
> Yes.  Is there some other kind?
>
>     In the case of directories, I would not consider a conflict
>     fatal.
>     If, regarding the case above, /disk/cdrom/share/foo and
>     /disk/home/<user>/share/foo provide the same file, just prefer
>     the CD-ROM because you have included it to get some additional
>     data that is not found in your installation.
>
> I don't follow, I am not sure what case you are talking about here.

Is this because you thought I wanted to merge directories permantly  
(which is not the case -- see above)?

By the way:  I meanwhile heard about unionfs, which is probably what I
considered.

Soeren Schulze

PS:
I have another issue related to this one, but I cannot really decide  
whether to post now or to wait.
Not to confuse everyone with two related topics at the same time, I am  
waiting for this one for now.
If you are interested, please tell me and I will post then.