[OT] Re: cfengine Mac packages, universal binaries, and mass deployment

[Brendan Strejcek]

Chris Kacoroski wrote:

> By package management I mean a tool that installs, upgrades,
> downgrades, tracks the installed packages, allows reporting on them,
> and uninstalls them (e.g. like apt on debian or the windows registry).
> Mac OSX is totally lacking in that regard. There is no standards on
> how to install a package and no database for tracking packages.

I'm not sure what you mean by "database for tracking packages" but there
is a lot of information kept in /Library/Receipts/. Package contents are
recorded in Archive.bom files (use lsbom to read .bom files). There is a
third party tool for removing packages:

    http://www.osxgnu.org/info/pkgdelete.html

I agree that the package management infrastructure of OS X is not as
well known, as well documented, or as well designed as some other
systems, but to say "completely lacking" is hyperbole at best.

Best,
Brendan

--
Senior System Administrator
The University of Chicago
Department of Computer Science

http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/people/brendan
http://praksys.blogspot.com/