tech-pkg: random comments from a pkg_comp newbie

Subject: random comments from a pkg_comp newbie
To: None <tech-pkg@netbsd.org>
From: Greg Troxel <gdt@ir.bbn.com>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 07/08/2004 14:30:43

I just started using pkg_comp, intending to rebuild up-to-date ones
without risking the running config. I have a few random comments.
* Why is pkgtools/x11-links built automatically? It seems this should
 get pulled in by the first thing that needs it. In my case, it
 loses because my x11 sets are not right (1.6.2/current xsrc), but I
 just pax over the xsrc destdir after building the chroot. So really
 this wouldn't hurt someone doing things right, but still if I try to
 build only a package that doesn't use x, I shouldn't have this
 built. (Same for digest, but I see there is an issue with compiler
 bootstrapping.)
* I used pkg_chk inside the chroot, with -s -a. I wanted binary
 packages, and didn't get them. I added DEPENDS_TARGET=package to
 mk.conf, but it seems like this should be the default somehow,
 between pkg_chk and pkg_comp. I fixed this by adding 
MKCONF_VARS="UPDATE_TARGET DEPENDS_TARGET"
UPDATE_TARGET=package
DEPENDS_TARGET=package
 to my pkg_comp config file before running makeroot. I suppose some
 people don't want binary packages, but that seems like the special
 case rather than the normal case for pkg_comp usage. Even people
 testing pkgsrc compilation would want to do that, to validate
 PLISTs, I'd think.
* I would like to run a batch compile with pkg_chk inside the chroot.
 I have written a script to install pkg_chk if not present and then
 run it with my config file, and placed the script and config file in
 the chroot. It would be nice to have a pkg_comp command to run a
 script in the chroot, so I don't need to type at it (and hence can
 put the whole thing in the background). I realize that I could
 perhaps use the 'build' target, but I want to let pkg_chk do the
 work. Am I missing some obvious way to do this, other than adding a
 'run' target to pkg_comp?
* It would be nice for the manpage to discus the pros and cons of
 overlaying the chroot packages dir on the real one. I chose to make
 a separate one, since I want to have clean pkg dir to put on a
 custom install cd. If the dir doesn't exist perhaps it should just
 be created, but I realize that can cover up errors.
This led me to other thoughts:
* It would be nice to have an option to list all packages which don't
 have binary packages in 'packages-comp' (pkg_comp package target
 dir). Like -l, but list all.
* It would be nice to have an option (probably in pkg_chk) to
 pkg_tarup binary packages for all packages that are installed but
 don't have binary packages present. Perhaps this is like -l, but
 with recovery rather than just complaints.
* Perhaps pkg_chk could have an option to do binary updates with
 'pkg_add -u' to get around the dependency issues. But perhaps this
 is too dangerous.
I don't mean to sound complaining - I'm finding pkg_comp and pkg_chk
very useful. Thanks jmmv, abs and seb, and I'm sure others.