Stable tag will be slipped Sunday and release engineering will begin Monday

[Rahul Siddharthan]

Bill Hacker wrote:
>Joerg Sonnenberger wrote:
>
>>
>> Try to use ports the same way you use Debian packages: Build them
>> on a separate machine or in a jail and install them afterwards.
>> You'll know when compilation breaks without having a half destroyed
>> system. You'll also have a matching set of binaries and libraries.
>> Don't mix installation machine and build machine, there lays madness.

If you're saying that, one day when a comprehensive set of binary
packages exists and "pkg_add -r" "just works", there will be no more
problems, then I'm glad to hear it.  

Failing that, one should have a mechanism by which an update builds
packages of all the ports that actually need to be updated, which
could be a couple hundred if gettext has been bumped up, and then
installs the packages only if all the packages have been successfully
built.  I think such a thing exists as an add-on for pkgsrc.

>> I've used Debian for a long enough time to know that it has problems
>> too, both with package management (ever had an update which tried to
>> remove half of your packages?) and QA (Debian specific changes which
>> break stuff and AFAIK are still in the tree).
>>
>> Joerg
>
>Good advice!
>
>*At least* always do a 'make' and look carefully at what it has wrought
>  - including reading the Makefile, docs,

Nope.  Doing a "make" will do "make install" on dependencies.  That's
precisely the problem when libpng or gettext were updated: you
update something innocuous like eog (an image viewer), that does a
make install in libpng as a dependency (even if it's just "make" in
eog), and all hell breaks loose.  Of course, if you already knew
of the libpng issue, then reading the Makefile will help: if you see
a libpng dependency, don't go further.  But the dependency could be
several levels down: eg, gnome-libs -> gtk -> libpng.

Portupgrade does take care of this, but I'm not sure what happens
if, for example, libpng builds but gtk doesn't (which could easily
happen on DFly).  You'd end up being unable to use any gtk/gnome
apps.  

So one either needs binary packages (apt downloads and
signature-verifies *all* needed updates before installing them) or
needs a mechanism that builds packages for *all* updates before
installing them (as I said, I think that exists for pkgsrc).

Rahul