Re: software packaging and ReiserFS v4

[Bennett Todd <bet@rahul.net>]

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2003-09-03T17:52:04 J?rgen Botz:
> Bennett Todd wrote:
> >>>(although the forward mappings within /var/lib/pkg/foo wouldn't
> >>>update automagically).
> >>
> >>They could, with the right plug-in.
> >
> >A plug-in to reach in and edit the forward references in the package
> >database misses my vision of "simple";
>
> There is no need for a separate "package database" with your
> scheme.  What is the package database but the contents of your
> 'pkg' directory?

The package database is the contents of /var/lib/pkg/ --- files,
each nearly completely documenting one package, with addenda as
needed under each --- plus the symlinks under each installed file
back representing the inverse map.

> Your links (/usr/bin/program/pkg -> /pkg/program/...) provide the
> inversion.  You only need a plug-in to make this "symbolic link"
> something that gets atomically changed at both ends.

The problem is that the forward maps aren't a symlink, they're text
files enumerating the contents of the package together with
attributes (is this a doc file, a config file, ...) and the
checksums table (a text file, w/ full pathnames and sha1 sums in
hex); that last usually signed by a detached OpenPGP sig.

> I can only paraphrase Hans: The filesystem *is* the database.

More than before, yes, but I don't quite see how it's practical for
it to be _every_ database.

-Bennett

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