Why pkgsrc sucks
Roland Illig
Introduction
- pkgsrc is an old, historically grown system.
- Many things are not implemented the Right Way.
- Basic documentation is missing.
Handling binary packages (1/2)
- File permissions and ownership are not checked for binary packages.
- The documentation is far from complete.
- Binary packages are not "formally" defined.
- No virtual packages (like MTA, X11, Windowmanager, java-vm, java-dk,
fake packages for native tools).
- No removal of unused configuration files (dpkg --purge).
- When deinstalling a package with configuration files, keep the
changed configuration file, as well as a diff to the original file.
- There are too many utilities for package management.
Handling binary packages (2/2)
Ask for anything unusual, like:
- Creation/deletion of user accounts
- Creation/deletion of group accounts
- Modification of external files
- Executing of external programs (except for some "trusted" programs)
- Special file permissions
The original configuration files of all packages should be in
share/etc, not share/examples, and the directory layout should be
the same as in pkg/etc.
Handling source packages
- The := operator in Makefiles
- The documentation is far from complete
- Only few error detection and error handling
- DISTNAME vs. PKGNAME
- The compiler wrapper does not detect when the CFLAGS supplied by the
pkgsrc-user are not used.
- No template files for the platform/compiler definitions, against
which a static analyzer could verify them.