Package formats (was Re: Debian-related advertising on debian-announce)
kaih@khms.westfalen.de (Kai Henningsen) writes:
> bruce@va.debian.org wrote on 05.02.98 in <[🔎] 19980205043216.15983.qmail@va.debian.org>:
>
> > Yes, POSIX has a package format.. Tim Sailer has ordered the document for
> > me.
>
> I have it here. It seems it's following some very different objectives
> than, say, dpkg or rpm. But maybe that's just my impression. I don't have
> it long enough to really have understood all the details.
>
> However, the general idea is to have a directory structure, with both the
> actual package files and text control files in it, which can optionally be
> packed up with either tar or cpio.
>
> Complicated structures - the stuff that Debian does by sorting packages
> into versions (bo/hamm), categories (base/news/web), and copyrights (main/
> contrib/non-free), seem to be handled by putting all the packaged files in
> the one directory tree.
>
> Non-interactive configuration is supported. So is installing partial
> packages, down to single files. And network installs.
>
> The utilities for manipulating packages are named swask (ask for user
> responses), swconfig (configure software), swcopy (copy distribution),
> swinstall (install software), swlist (list software catalog), swmodify
> (modify software catalog), swpackage (package distribution), swremove
> (remove software), and swverify (verify software).
That smells like SVR4's pkgadd extended so as not to upset the
non-SVR4 vendors.
--
Stephen
---
"Normality is a statistical illusion." -- me
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