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GNU SRC Updated: BSD Ports-Like System In The GNU World

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  • #11
    I really don't see the point to this, as much as I like the idea of the Ports system... anything that's a GNU project that matters at all is already going to be prepackaged by the distro, so this is totally redundant and much better handled by your distro native package manager

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    • #12
      Maybe this could work well together with Linux From Scratch?

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      • #13
        Originally posted by Luke_Wolf View Post
        I really don't see the point to this, as much as I like the idea of the Ports system... anything that's a GNU project that matters at all is already going to be prepackaged by the distro, so this is totally redundant and much better handled by your distro native package manager
        Hi, GSRC maintainer here.

        There are a few different reasons people use GSRC. A big one is that not everyone has administrative access on every machine that they use. Furthermore, those shared machines that they use are often running distros like CentOS which have ancient versions of programs installed. GSRC makes it easy to locally install the most recent versions of GNU programs to your home directory. For example, I don't use it on my home computer because I can just install things system-wide via the AUR, but I do use it on the cluster I use at work so I'm not stuck using a five-year-old version of Emacs or a four-year-old version of GCC. Sure, it's straight-forward to manually download a tarball and install it locally, but GSRC automates everything and also implements a nice Stow-like symlinking system. Other people who don't use distros but rather maintain their own system from scratch also use GSRC to simplify installing GNU software.

        Also, I would like to clarify that GSRC is not, nor was it ever meant to be, a full distro. Thus, its scope will never expand beyond GNU software. Its purpose is just for automating the installation of GNU software. Those interested in a full package-manager/distro should look at Guix or even GARStow, on which GSRC was based. Though, I do know of one distro that is working on using GSRC as a base for its future package management system (that will exist entirely independently of GSRC in the long run).

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        • #14
          Originally posted by Luke_Wolf View Post
          I really don't see the point to this, as much as I like the idea of the Ports system... anything that's a GNU project that matters at all is already going to be prepackaged by the distro, so this is totally redundant and much better handled by your distro native package manager
          I guess the best-case is that it grows up to be so good and so well-supported that it can take over as the default build-from-source tool in all distros. I don't really see that happening, though - to get into a majority, it would have to replace the build-from-source parts of several package managers that mostly use binary packages, and I doubt those are willing to move to something that doesn't integrate nearly as well.

          A more realistic goal is to be kind of like CPAN/CRAN/emacs packages/whatever - a niche ecosystem with its own package handling tools that are common across all distros (and several OSes) without integrating or interfering much with the surrounding system. The problem with that idea is, as you say, that most interesting GNU projects are already handled in every half-sensible package manager out there, so you'd only need it for the weirder and smaller ones. Of course, "a package manager for the GNU projects that are so weird your distro hasn't bothered to package them" isn't the greatest slogan.

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          • #15
            This project looks cool. I really like ports systems since I like the idea of fetching the software from the authors website rather than a central repository.
            Using pkgsrc on RHEL was quite broken so hopefully this one will be more tailored towards Linux.

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            • #16
              This is basicaly reinventing Gentoo Prefix with a hardcoded ACCEPT_LICENSE="-* @FSF-APPROVED".

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              • #17
                ... which was basically reinventing FreeBSD's ports system.

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                • #18
                  Not really, the FreeBSD ports are tied to FreeBSD. So they needed to be "ported" or "reinvented" to Linux. On the other hand:

                  Currently users of the following systems successfully run Gentoo Prefix: Mac OS X on PPC and x86, Linux on x86, x86_64 and ia64, Solaris 10 on Sparc, Sparc/64, x86 and x86_64, FreeBSD on x86, AIX on PPC, Interix on x86, Windows on x86 (with the help of Interix), HP-UX on PARISC and ia64.

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                  • #19
                    […] not to mention only focusing on GPL software.
                    Do you have a proof for this? Isn't it decentralized anyway?

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                    • #20
                      Originally posted by jakobcreutzfeldt View Post
                      Hi, GSRC maintainer here.

                      There are a few different reasons people use GSRC. A big one is that not everyone has administrative access on every machine that they use. Furthermore, those shared machines that they use are often running distros like CentOS which have ancient versions of programs installed. GSRC makes it easy to locally install the most recent versions of GNU programs to your home directory. For example, I don't use it on my home computer because I can just install things system-wide via the AUR, but I do use it on the cluster I use at work so I'm not stuck using a five-year-old version of Emacs or a four-year-old version of GCC. Sure, it's straight-forward to manually download a tarball and install it locally, but GSRC automates everything and also implements a nice Stow-like symlinking system. Other people who don't use distros but rather maintain their own system from scratch also use GSRC to simplify installing GNU software.

                      Also, I would like to clarify that GSRC is not, nor was it ever meant to be, a full distro. Thus, its scope will never expand beyond GNU software. Its purpose is just for automating the installation of GNU software. Those interested in a full package-manager/distro should look at Guix or even GARStow, on which GSRC was based. Though, I do know of one distro that is working on using GSRC as a base for its future package management system (that will exist entirely independently of GSRC in the long run).
                      Yes, I ran into this issue a lot at University and I certainly see how this is useful. But what is wrong with using pkgsrc for home directory package management? That worked great on ancient CentOS and Fedora workstations.

                      If you can outdo pkgsrc in numbers, more power to you.

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