Re: idea -- apt-based init daemon
On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 10:49 AM, hhm
<heehooman+debian-devel-list@gmail.com> wrote:
> Apt manages dependencies, and processes triggers. It was created for
> managing software packages...
>
> ...maybe it can be augmented with functionality to manage software services too!
Best idea since the invention of sliced bread!
One of the driving forces behind modern inits is to unify the ecosystem on
the lower levels so what would be better than bundling a standard package
manager into init! For a transition phase we would even have an apt-rpm
fork available, but transitioning to dpkg is of course immanent – and
makes perfect sense, as nobody needs fragmentation in the plumping area!
This might even help to get more people interested in working on APT, so
a clear win-win situation, lets do this folks! Head over to deity@l.d.o
and start contributing, we need every helping hand we can possibly get!
On a more serious note: APT doesn't process triggers, that is dpkg's job.
With the use of CUDF (or the APT-intermediate format) EDSP you can
even experiment with different dependency solvers as that is what you
actually need from APT, all the other stuff would be pretty useless in an
init context, I guess. It's btw not the first time someone proposed this.
Yet, while APT has indeed a dependency solver it is even in its simplicity
way to feature-full for init. I don't see a need for negative (=Conflicts, …)
dependencies for example … Would be kinda cool to apply an interactive solver
like the one from aptitude on init problems though :)
What you need to solve is equivalent to 'tsort' in regards to dependencies.
Maybe have a closer look at cricles though. Of course, very few init systems
nowadays are only inits, which leads us back to the package manager bundle …
Best regards
David Kalnischkies, APT contributor (on hiatus)
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