Gentoo Archives: gentoo-alt

From: "C. Bergström" <cbergstrom@×××××××××.com>
To: gentoo-alt@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-alt] alt-prefix on solaris: it rocks. plus badge.
Date: Mon, 25 May 2009 08:03:40
Message-Id: 4A1A5098.3030602@netsyncro.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-alt] alt-prefix on solaris: it rocks. plus badge. by Markus Duft
1 Markus Duft wrote:
2 > On Sun, 2009-05-24 at 21:12 +0200, Fabian Groffen wrote:
3 >
4 >> On 24-05-2009 22:04:07 +0300, "C. Bergström" wrote:
5 >>
6 > [snip]
7 >
8 >>> Also.. prefix is worthless for circumstances where you want to have core
9 >>> system files that need to be 64bit and aren't.. libhal was a good
10 >>> example in the past.. (which they do provide 64bit for now thankfully)
11 >>> This is on top of if you're actually doing any real development of the
12 >>> core os/zfs.. You'll probably need to patch zdb or other things..
13 >>> Building onnv-gate by hand if you've ever done it is less than fun.
14 >>> patching dozens or hundreds of servers/zones under svr4 packaging is
15 >>> less than fun.
16 >>> </rant>
17 >>>
18 >> It's not about who is better. I don't think Prefix is worthless for
19 >> 64-bits, as we do a pretty much good job there.
20 To clarify my 64bit comment.. If you need 64bit libvscan on solaris how
21 will you build it with prefix?
22 >> This Prefix project is
23 >> built on top of some assumptions about our users, and discussing those
24 >> is useless. The rest is just a bit of taste for the situations where
25 >> you actually have the freedom to choose. I for one don't have much to
26 >> choose where I work, and to a certain extent I also don't desire to.
27 >>
28 >>
29 >
30 > ++
31 >
32 > couldn't have said that better :) if you don't like prefix, than don't
33 > use it.
34 >
35 I don't and I was trying to be helpful originally.
36 > Imagine a large company, having many, many development boxes, running
37 > different OS' (AIX, Solaris, Linux, Windows, HP-UX) on different CPUs
38 > (Xeon, UltraSparc, HP-PA, ...). prefix is absolutely priceless for
39 > creating a common layer upon all these. this is required for us to be
40 > able to maintain our millions of lines of code. otherwise we'd have to
41 > fiddle with the build system all the time.
42 > We also may not have root access on these boxes, so how could we
43 > otherwise install cool stuff? I'd need prefix even on OSUNIX...
44 >
45 > And the above is only *one* of the dozens of use cases of prefix.
46 >
47 > i guess OSUNIX may be cool as desktop
48 OSUNIX has no desktop and is intended for serious solaris developers and
49 admin. (Workstation forthcoming, but still not the primary focus)
50
51 Also the same personal overlay you have now that works with prefix
52 solaris would in theory work with OSUNIX. There are some differences,
53 but those are design choices.
54
55 Our target isn't multiboot or random users without privileges to install
56 software.
57
58 * core solaris developers
59 * appliance platform
60 * direct replacement for sol10, sxce, osol
61
62 So if you are say a university student, some non-admin employee or have
63 a weird heterogeneous environment.. Sure prefix is great and makes
64 certain things more convenient, but is that an individual or business
65 use case?
66
67 In fairness.. A long time ago.. /we/ used prefix to bootstrap and
68 experiment to get the whole thing going. I was more or less tossing this
69 out there originally and not trying to "compete" with prefix.. I
70 somewhat see this as arguing that you're buying gentoo hosting and have
71 portage/pkgcore installed, but your limited user account forces you to
72 use prefix because it's better....
73
74 Good luck
75
76 ./C

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-alt] alt-prefix on solaris: it rocks. plus badge. Fabian Groffen <grobian@g.o>