| 1 |
Apparently, though unproven, at 20:15 on Tuesday 07 September 2010, Al did |
| 2 |
opine thusly: |
| 3 |
|
| 4 |
> > So it really does come down to portage after all. Portage has a hard |
| 5 |
> > dependency on bash. portage is intimately wrapped up in the linux way of |
| 6 |
> > doing things. |
| 7 |
> |
| 8 |
> Right, we have to say Bash. To be exact Bash is GNU not Linux. I |
| 9 |
> genarally say Linux not Gnu-Linux. However in this case the difference |
| 10 |
> matters. |
| 11 |
> |
| 12 |
> http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/ |
| 13 |
|
| 14 |
I fail to see how this is relevant. Portage requires bash, not sh. |
| 15 |
|
| 16 |
It is utterly irrelevant what the licensing and political implications are for |
| 17 |
bash, the technical fact is that portage *requires* Chet's app. |
| 18 |
|
| 19 |
To be fair to portage, it's not portage itself that requires it, it's the |
| 20 |
ebuilds. But ebuilds are the dedicated input format to portage and the two are |
| 21 |
inextricably linked. |
| 22 |
|
| 23 |
> I run portage more or less sucessfully on Cygwins POSIX layer. Other |
| 24 |
> people run it on Interix or Solaris. |
| 25 |
> |
| 26 |
> > As evidence: the only non-linux port that went anywhere was on FreeBSD, |
| 27 |
> > now moribund for years. |
| 28 |
> |
| 29 |
> True. But FreeBSD isn't that popular like Windows, Mac or Linux. |
| 30 |
|
| 31 |
So you don't work at a Tier 1 ISP then? |
| 32 |
|
| 33 |
FreeBSD rules that space. I get hugely better performance out of Postfix on |
| 34 |
FreeBSD than on Linux - all other ISPs in this country concur. |
| 35 |
|
| 36 |
> I think there is a future for second level managers that can be |
| 37 |
> installed into multiple OS and yet set up the very same POSIX |
| 38 |
> invironement. Having that you can build complex software that is |
| 39 |
> portable. You don't depend on Java. You don't need to run a virtual |
| 40 |
> server. |
| 41 |
> |
| 42 |
> Currently there are two canditates. One candidate is Cygwin Ports, the |
| 43 |
> other one is Gentoo Prefix. Cygwin Ports just added cross-compilation |
| 44 |
> features into the latest edition. Still Cygwin is limited to Windows. |
| 45 |
> By this Cygwin Ports has done the first steps to become portable to |
| 46 |
> Linux and Mac in future and it is already very mature on Windows. |
| 47 |
> |
| 48 |
> Gentoo Prefix is already able to run on Windows-Interix, Linux and Mac |
| 49 |
> as second level manager, but it isn't that mature. Still it is not |
| 50 |
> discovered by a bigger community. The potential is already there. |
| 51 |
|
| 52 |
The benefits of a source-based distro are many and have been covered |
| 53 |
extensively elsewhere. gentoo.org lists most of them in a accurate fashion. |
| 54 |
|
| 55 |
I never said porting portage could not be done, I said it would be hard work. |
| 56 |
|
| 57 |
|
| 58 |
> |
| 59 |
> So you finally can't say FreeBSD was the only port of Portage. But |
| 60 |
> there is none that went to a major public. |
| 61 |
|
| 62 |
I don't see the point of portage on FreeBSD frankly, considering the general |
| 63 |
use-case where FreeBSD shines. ports is more than adequate for that and I |
| 64 |
don't need the maintenance overhead of portage on machines requiring weekly |
| 65 |
updates. I don't build embedded systems or need highly customized OSes. |
| 66 |
|
| 67 |
In fact, portage is complete overkill and I refuse to allow it to be deployed |
| 68 |
at work. Check my posting history for the rationale behind this. |
| 69 |
|
| 70 |
|
| 71 |
-- |
| 72 |
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com |
Archives