Re: Platforms other than Linux?

[Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@datasync.com>]

Hi,

	I think that it should be easy to set up an intial file 
 /var/lib/dpkg/status, either manually, or using the packae that
 generated psuedo packages to satisfy dependencies (I'm sorry, I
 forget its name, but the mailing list archives should have it). 

	I can see someone generating a Packages file and a slew of
 empty .deb files that using the psuedo-package-generator, and a
 script, and a list of package names and vendor versions. Note that we
 do not really need to manipulate vendor packages using dpkg (because
 in most cases we can't).

	If all you want is that dpkg knows you have a libc and so on,
 and lets you install kerberos, this is the lowest hassle approach
 that adheres to the KISS principle (some one has already written the
 psuedo deb file generator).

	The list of packages for a given vendor-os-platform
 combination is unlikely to change a lot, so the effort required to
 maintain the list should be minimal for each such combination.

	This is, IMHO, far easier than hacking dpkg/deity to ignore
 dependencies, and if we do do that, we have lost most of the
 advantages of dpkg anyway. I think that converting to and from the
 native package management system a) may not be possible, dependeing
 on the overlap of the capabilities of dpkg ad the native package
 management system, b) be more effort per architecture than generating
 a list of packages already installed.

	manoj

-- 
 "Go to Hell Mr. Stout -- you stink as a human being." Deb Paul
Manoj Srivastava               <url:mailto:srivasta@acm.org>
Mobile, Alabama USA            <url:http://www.datasync.com/%7Esrivasta/>


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