From: Massimiliano Mirra <list@...>
Date: 2002-01-11T14:08:59+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] rpkg 0.1 (long!)

On Fri, Jan 11, 2002 at 10:12:18AM +0900, Kero van Gelder wrote:
> Cool. What's wrong with dpkg? Don't tell me RH ppl do not have
> dpkg. They don't have rpkg, either.

I suppose nothing is wrong with dpkg, provided that it runs on
Windows, Mac, and all other platforms Ruby runs on, and that we can
extend its C source as easily as we would with rpkg when we're adding
Ruby-specific features.

> Could you perhaps use the same fileformat and naming for the
> packages?

Rpkg's file format is just a gzipped tar.  Dpkg's too is gzipped but I
don't know what's under that.

Naming conventions are identical to dpkg, except that all dots but the
one preceding the extension are converted to underscores to avoid problems
under Windows.

> Whatever you do:
>  - allow for cross packaging (I build a few packages for iPAQ:
>    arm(v4l) on my PC; I already replicated some helper scripts).

I am not sure about what you mean with cross packaging.  If it is just
producing packages on a platform and installing them on a different
one, yes, of course it allows that, that's the whole point of the
story after all. ;-)

>  - Allow for two packages that are exactly the same, but one used by
>    ruby 1.6 and the other by 1.7 (version "1.7:moduleversion-andmore"
>    seems a candidate; this colon is in use with dpkg to distinguish
>    between different glibc versions, but I do not know it exact
>    semantics, or rather, which package will be chosen if one of them
>    does not provide the number. This can not be an afterthought, this
>    must be designed.)

If two packages are exactly the same, why should there be two of them
in the first place?

I assume that you mean two packages with the same name but tailored to
different interpreters/other dependencies.  Still I cannot see what
you refer to.  Care to elaborate a bit?

This is what I've seen in the Debian database, I don't know how
relevant it is:

libgtk1.2 - The GIMP Toolkit set of widgets for X
libgtk1.2-common - Common files for the GTK+ library
libgtk1.2-dbg - Debugging files for the GIMP Toolkit
libgtk1.2-dev - Development files for the GIMP Toolkit
libgtk1.2-doc - Documentation for the GIMP Toolkit
libgtk1.3-11 - Unstable GTK+ graphical user interface library
libgtk1.3-common - Common files for the GTK+ graphical user interface library
libgtk1.3-dbg - Unstable GTK+ library and debugging symbols
libgtk1.3-dev - Unstable headers and and statically-linked GTK+ library
libgtk1.3-doc - Documentation for the GTK+ graphical user interface library

ruby-examples - Examples for the scripting language Ruby
ruby1.7-examples - Examples for the scripting language Ruby.
ruby - An interpreter of object-oriented scripting language Ruby
ruby1.7 - An interpreter of object-oriented scripting language Ruby.

> PS: what is wrong with dpkg for iPAQ, you might ask. Good
> question. Intimate uses it, but familiar doesn't. The main reason is
> limited storage space: 16 MB flash should not be wasted on big
> databases.

Does that mean that a small database could still be a choice, or that
you'd rather rely exclusively on a remote service?  Both can be
accomplished, either by having rpkg-scanpackages produce a stripped
database along with the big one on the repository, or by having rapt
send out search/show/install rpc's to a service on the repository
server, probably with little modification.

> Of course, if rpkg would use the same file format as ipkg, I'd be
> happy, too :) They look sufficiently similar at this moment that this
> could be possible. Grab an ipkg at
>   http://members.chello.nl/~k.vangelder/ipaq/feed/ruby_1.6.6-1_armv4l.ipk
> 
> or peek at ipkg scripts at
>   http://cvs.handhelds.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/familiar/dist/ipkg/

Thanks, I'll have a look at both.


Massimiliano