iPKG on CF?

Goetz Bock writes:
>
> > Will iPKG install packages on CF memory or udrives? The ToDO list says
> > "Make it easier to install ipkgs onto various filesystems...". Does
> > "easier" mean it is currently possible?

"Easier" means easier than installing them into flash and then
manually moving the files. ;) However, even if you manually move
things, ipkg can help you out by listing all the files that belong to
an application with "ipkg files <pkg_name>".

> It's possible to install to CF or udrive, but the installed files are
> not useable by the stock familiar version, you've to add all the nedded
> pathes (PATH, manpath, libpath ...) to your environment.
>
> There's a parameter "IPKG_ROOT" in /etc/ipkg.conf that tells you where
> the iPKGs will be installed to.

Interesting... the real reason I added IPKG_ROOT was to run ipkg on my
desktop machine targeting a subdirectory rather than /, (this is
useful for testing as well as for creating images).

I suppose it would actually work in a pinch for installing a package
onto some other filesystem. The minor problem is that editing the
config file is a painful way to retarget the system. The major problem
is that after this command you will have ipkg meta-data stashed in two
different locations, but no commands know to look in more than one
location. This means that "ipkg status" will only list installed
packages from one of the locations for example. And "ipkg remove" will
fail if you're not pointing at the right IPKG_ROOT at some point.

However, having the meta-data in a separate location is probably the
Right Thing, (so that a portable file-system can be self-contained and
aware of all of its installed packages). So all I need to do is make
commands such as "ipkg status" support a list of various IPKG_ROOT
locations, while commands such as "ipkg install" need an easy way to
specify a single one of these destinations.

Once that is working people will also want commands to move packages
between ipkg stashes as well. And it would be nice for Familiar to
provide a mechanism for registering a new IPKG_ROOT location, (ie. add
it to PATH, /etc/ld.so.conf, etc)

That's really not much effort, so maybe all of this is closer than I
thought.

Another problem to deal with is packages that have absolute paths
encoded in their binaries, (ie. it looks in /etc/foo.conf and won't
find /usr/local/etc/foo.conf). Maybe a good solution would be a new
control file similar to CONTROL/conffiles that simply lists the files
(or directories), that must be in absolute locations and ipkg will
create symlinks as necessary.

Comments, suggestions?

-Carl

-- 
Carl Worth                                        
USC Information Sciences Institute                 cworth_at_east.isi.edu
4350 N. Fairfax Dr. #770, Arlington VA 22203	          703-812-3725