[Pan-users] Re: Anyone get pan compiling with gcc 4.3 yet?

[Duncan]

Rhialto <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Sat, 05 Apr 2008
17:24:26 +0200:

> I use pkgsrc, which is as the name implies, packages in source
> form [...] "cross-platform" [...] a bunch of makefiles [...]

Interesting.  I'd seen the name pkgsrc, but never knew what it was.
I've at least a bit of an idea, now.  =8^)

> The difficulties come of course when something needs to be upgraded.
> There are several strategies for that, traditionally the "remove
> everything, then recompile" which isn't very satisfying on a production
> system. The solution that I use is called "pkg_comp". This basically
> creates a chrooted sandbox in which copies of the OS and packages are
> installed. In it, one can use the "remove, then recompile" strategy
> without harm. From each package one then creates a "binary package".
> After everything has recompiled, I can quickly update my real system
> from the generated binary packages.

Gentoo's approach is similar, except that instead of make files, it uses 
bash scripts (could be sh compatible but not all ebuilds are, so Gentoo 
requires bash), with the package managers (now three to choose from) and 
ebuild scripts combining to automate the sandbox concept.  Due to that 
automation and a few other factors (the USE flag concept, etc), Gentoo's 
approach may be superior WHERE SUPPORTED, particularly on GNU/Linux altho 
there's a Gentoo/FBSD port as well, but pkgsrc/pkg_comp sounds like it 
covers more platforms with less porting pain.

So I definitely need to keep pkgsrc in mind re portability, and it does 
sound like perhaps a framework built around it could indeed become my 
predicted eventual from-source top-three distribution*.  Thanks!

---
* In context, "distribution" is used generically, a "distribution" of *ix 
packages and/or build scripts.  Thus, it's BSD and etc inclusive, NOT 
just limited to Linux, tho I believe a copylefted solution likely to 
continue to dominate.  (OpenSolaris over Linux if the software patent 
thing blows up??)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman