Package management with dependencies

[vaskas]

While the current Slackware-like process works well we might need a more sophisticated method of shipping packages once we have lots of them 😉

A few good options are:

1. APK / abuild from Alpine linux

• The format is close to ArchLinux's PKGBUILD and the build tool is effectively a simplified makepkg

• Fast

• Easy to use

• May contain Linuxisms

• https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Include:Abuild

• https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/APKBUILD_Reference

2. Pkgin from NetBSD / pkgsrc

• Fast

• Easy to use

• May contain BSDisms. E.g. it depends on libfetch that itself lives in the Net- and FreeBSD source trees and needs Makefile mockery

• http://pkgin.net/

[vaskas]

Another one worth investigating: https://crux.nu/Main/Handbook3-3#ntoc13

[vaskas]

and one more http://z3bra.org/pm/

[vaskas]

Tried https://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/opkg and couldn't port quickly due to GNU-isms in the codebase that aren't easy to fix (strndup, open_memstream, fmemopen).

Now proceeding with pkgin. Got libfetch to build standalone (thanks Void Linux guys): https://github.com/BerryFarm/libfetch

[karawitan]

https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak :-)

[vaskas]

https://flatkill.org/ @Berryamin

[karawitan]

oups .. let's forget about flatpak ...

[vaskas]

Ok, here is where we got to in converting to adopting pkgin / pkg_install (https://github.com/BerryFarm/berrymuch/tree/build-nbpkg):

• libarchive, libfetch, libnbcompat, pkg_install ported
• With the above, I got pkg_install tools (e.g. pkg_add) working perfectly locally on the phone
• I could get pkgin to build and work, but it had an issue fetching remote packages
• The above linked build-nbpkg branch contains updated build scripts to bundle every berrymuch package into pkg_add compatible packages
• At this point, no dependencies between the packages are specified. So the value of pkg_add is limited.
• Without pkgin working with remote packages, its value is also limited

What needs to be done to finish this work:

• Solve the pkgin / libfetch bug
• Specify dependencies for every package in the ports/
• Build and host the berrymuch packages in the new format

As I mentioned before I don't see myself working on this in the near future. If someone wants to contribute they are very welcome.

cc @extrowerk @csalg