PDK of Componentized Linux [was: Introduction]
Hi
[switching to a more descriptive subject]
On Mon, Feb 20, 2006 at 12:10:59PM -0500, Darrin Thompson wrote:
> Hi all.
>
> I was encouraged to introduce myself to this list and explain my cdd
> project. I'm Darrin Thompson and I work for Progeny.
>
> For the past 11 months I've been laboring over PDK. PDK stands for
> Platform Development Kit. It is designed to automate the maintenance of
> custom Debian and RPM based distributions.
>
> PDK is designed to make managing full Debian or RPM based distributions
> as much like managing source code as possible. With source code we
> capture state in time with version control tools, and invoke compilers
> on source trees to produce various "stuff".
>
> That said, we've built pdk so that it remains mostly true to its vision.
> Version control is built around git, a real version control system, and
> the files stored in it are literally source code which can be diffed and
> the results are meaningful. There are currently no magic daemons and you
> don't need a dba to support the system. It just lives happily on a
> filesystem. You can share your work with the world with nothing more
> than a filesystem and the raw webserver of your choice.
>
> The source code files are written in a component description language
> we've cooked up for pdk and we refer to them as component descriptors,
> or just components. The language the components are written in is pretty
> obvious to read at a glance.
>
> And just recently we added the ability to not only include one component
> within another, but to include only desired portions, and the desired
> portions can be described with a flexible condition.
>
> The system described by a tree of components is intended to produce
> three different outputs.
>
> The first output is a package repository. PDK knows how to produce a
> proper Debian repository out of the box, and can do so with any small or
> large component.
>
> The second output is an installable media set. This part was just added
> to pdk and isn't yet mature. Currently with incantations and rain dances
> we can produce d-i isos for our dcc distro. I think one person in
> Mallorca built a distro using dcc that used Anaconda for Debian as the
> installer.
>
> The third output of a component tree is a metadata report. This is a
> fairly general mechanism, but one of it's first targets is security
> reporting. Currently there is very little command line interface to this
> plumbing but it can be accessed via the pdk api. Basically it allows you
> to attach single metadata values or link multiple entities to packages
> in ways that reduce maintenance burden.
Sounds impressive and useful.
BTW: do you use the Debian Installer or Anaconda?
--
Tzafrir Cohen icq#16849755 +972-50-7952406
tzafrir.cohen@xorcom.com http://www.xorcom.com
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