Ideas for Improving pkgsrc

Dieter Baron < dillo@NetBSD.org >

Things pkgsrc Does Well

• building packages from source
• tweak the build of packages (options &c)
• available binary packages for default settings
  (for some platforms)

Things pkgsrc Doesn't Do Quite as Well

• create binary packages for non-default settings
• mix old and new packages, use old packages to build new ones
• ease of use, especially for newcomers

Improve pkg_install

• move common INSTALL snippets to pkg_install
• no @commands in PLIST
• consider all affected packages at once
• remove unneeded automatically installed packages (pkg_delete)
• make use of pkg_summary, check feasibility of operation first
• rc.d scripts: don't require variable setting in rc.config

Improve Maintainability

• restructure pkgsrc guide to make binary-only users first class citizens
• easy, documented, and supported way to update installed packages
• update bootstrap packages
• easy, documented way to set up and maintain pbulk
• move binary packages out of All directory

Build More Packages

• pbulk: build binary packages for multiple options settings
• better locators, PKGPATH insufficient
  (We build multiple packages from one directory.)
• sub-packages

Improve pkgsrc

• make infrastructure easier to hack on
• move list of dependencies to buildlink into package
• fix open-ended dependencies
  • PROVIDES/REQUIRES
  • minimum backwards compatible version
• remove minimum required version from buildlink3.mk
• stop revision bump on shared library major change
• test dependencies (installed before test target is run)