Packaging stuff

Anthony W. Youngman wol at thewolery.demon.co.uk
Tue Oct 24 19:01:15 PDT 2000


In message <Pine.LNX.4.21.0010241653010.26386-100000 at localhost.localdoma
in>, Stuart Anderson <anderson at metrolink.com> writes
>On Wed, 25 Oct 2000, Anthony W. Youngman wrote:
>
>> >What commands can be used by these scripts needs to be specified. The list of
>> >available commands in the LSB covers this.
>> 
>> Start thinking "out of the box". You are stuck in the mould of what's
>> already been "sort of" specified. Why not take a completely new tack?
>
>Anything that is added needs to be properly documented. The list of commands
>that have been selected so far have such documentation. I think that any other
>command for which comparable documentation was available would be considered.

Okay. I'm quite happy to have a go at specifying something. I'll almost
certainly need some help, though. It's just that last time I tried, as
mentioned before, I felt rather "slapped down". I bet Nick will help.
>
>> >What does not need to be standardized?
>> >
>> >How the installation tool works does not need to be standardized. Only the
>> >command for invoking it needs to be specified.
>> 
>> IE a standard API!
>
>Do you (and Nick) mean a C library with programming interfaces? I don't
>understand why you would want that vs a command that hides the details of the
>backend DB. A single lsb_install command could be used to install the package,
>and make queries of the database without having to get into too much low level
>details. You need a command to be able to use in any makefile/configure based
>system which has been aluded to in this thread.
>
Not necessarily a C interface (though that would be nice). Basically a
standard naming convention, and some form of query/update language that
says "does package X exist" or "I've just installed package Y". So yes,
an "lsb --query, lsb --install, lsb --delete" sort of api might well be
in the works.

The idea is that the LSB contains an api, and it's the package database
guys (eg the RedHat guys who maintain the rpm program or the Deb guys
who look after apt) to actually write the interface that queries their
database.

NB - I've cc'd this to my office address - it's 3am here and I'm not
going to be at home for the next few days so cc's there would be
appreciated.

Cheers,
Wol.
-- 
Anthony W. Youngman - wol at thewolery dot demon dot co dot uk
HEX wondered how much he should tell the Wizards. He felt it would not be a
good idea to burden them with too much input. Hex always thought of his reports 
as Lies-to-People.
The Science of Discworld : (c) Terry Pratchett 1999




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