importsce "add-on".sces based on "base".sces

[netnomad]

hi jason w,

i can confirm that the last cut works fine for me.

thank you for your help.

[Jason W]

Great.

I honed searchdeb to include a more exhaustive list of packages.  But I would rather importsce to give the more streamlined results as it currently does.  Searchdeb to find all possible matches, then use the results as a guide on what characters to enter into importsce.

Also, a searchprebuilt tool is available.   Uploaded new cut to release candidates.  If no more major bugs, I will soon commit to git.

[netnomad]

hi jason w,

a really good job
these new options improved dCore so much!
new opportunities are waiting for us

searchdeb and searchprebuilt: are these tools for the user or are they just working inside of importsce?

thank you for your work.

[Jason W]

Thanks!

Both search tools are basically importsce with everything removed except from what is needed to search debs or prebuilt.  They are made for easy and exhaustive searching for the user.  I thought it would keep it simpler to separate the search only functions and not add any more complexity to importsce. 

Hopefully things will just work at this point, lets give it a week of use and if no issues arise I will add to git and this should make for another release.

Location of the current testing dCore.gz:

http://www.tinycorelinux.net/5.x/x86/release_candidates/dCore.gz

http://www.tinycorelinux.net/5.x/x86/release_candidates/dCore.gz.md5.txt

EDIT:  Reposted with some bugfixes 2.28.14 7:30pm.

[Jason W]

Ok, another cut after going over with a fine tooth comb.

Also, a new tool "checkmissingdebs" that is available as an extension for in the case you use, say, mydesktop as a dependency but then later re-import it with fewer packages than originally and then apps that depend on it are broken.  This tool will point out what is missing that is needed by dependent apps, though a simple re-import of a broken sce in this case will fix it by bringing in any needed deps not provided by the dependency sce's. 

"importsce checkmissingdeps" to import the tool.

"checkmissingdebs firefox" to tell which Debian packages are needed by firefox but are not loaded in the system and will tell you which dependency SCE's they were originally provided by.

[netnomad]

hi jason w,

my tests give really good results.

only little issues:

tc@box:~$ checkmissingdebs gimp
No package information is available for gimp.  Exiting..
tc@box:~$ checkmissingdebs mc 
No package information is available for mc.  Exiting..
tc@box:~$ checkmissingdebs 000-boot
No package information is available for 000-boot.  Exiting..

during the
importsce -d -s -f .TCE/sce/000-base
i get error messages about a missing /tmp/.scedebs and /tmp/.scedeps

just to inform you

thank you for your good work.

[Jason W]

Thanks, I also saw the missing /tmp files a time or two on the latest cut.   I will peek in at it tonight.

The missing package information message means that there are no lists of dependency packages inside the sce.  I will make it check sces that have no depedencies using their md5sum file and echo an "No missing packages" type of message.  Though I don't know how contents of a loaded sce would not get installed, that would at least tell us if the general import and loadsce routine is working.  This checkmissingdebs tool had actually exposed a few bugs in import/loadsce due to these recent changes that I would otherwise not have found, at least not right away.

[netnomad]

hi jason w,

i tested the last cut...

tc@box:~/.MNT/sdb1/live/dcore-testing/boot$ md5sum dCore.gz
6fb5dbec60195fd1cc17da51c3276b67  dCore.gz

it seems fine for me except of the error messages about the missing /tmp/.scedebs.

so i help me with
tc@box:~$ cd tmp
tc@box:~/tmp$ touch .scedebs
tc@box:~/tmp$ touch .scedeps

thank you for your help.

[Jason W]

Hi netnomad,
It is tonight, and I just took a peek at it.  :-)    I honed checkmissingdebs, and hopefully fixed the /tmp file existence error messages.  Harmless, but indeed should not be there.  Also some other minor cosmetic bugfixes.  I am satisfied that we are at the stage of going over it with a fine tooth comb. 

Uploaded a new dCore.gz to the release candidate area, and also updated the checkmissingdebs package.

Please test and report any issues.  Thanks.

[netnomad]

hi jason w,

sorry, but the files /tmp/.scedebs and /tmp/.scedeps are still missing...
... i just want to inform you and i don't want to harrass you with cosmetic stuff
but i'm still not sure whether i understand the usage of checkmissingdebs:
could you give an example that shows me any result?

my packages don't show any results:
tc@box:~$ checkmissingdebs mc
No package information is available for mc.  Exiting..
tc@box:~$ checkmissingdebs 000-base
No package information is available for 000-base.  Exiting..

thank you for your help.

[Jason W]

Checkmissingdebs is really a way to protect the user from himself.  Say he imports base.sce from a package list, then uses it as a dependency for firefox.  Then later he re-imports base with a shorter file list than before, leaving out libgtk2.0-0 or any package that firefox is dependent upon.  On rebooting, he sees firefox does not work.

He can run "checkmissingdebs firefox" and it will tell him that at the time firefox was imported using base as a dep, base contained libgtk2.0-0 but now it does not.  He can then re-import firefox and all is well.

Any missing dependencies from re-importing dependency packages that result in a broken app that depends on it can be identified.  Say firefox depended on desktop.sce which depends on base.sce, a missing package in base or desktop or even firefox will show up when checking firefox.

I redid checkmissingdebs to have more clear messages.  /tmp/.debinstalled is the list of packages (debs and prebuilt, not the sce's) that are installed in the system.  And that is the file that is used by checkmissingdebs.  To test functionality without re-importing sce's that are used as dependencies just delete entries from that list, emulating their not being installed in the system. 

I will look into the echoing of missing /tmp files, I thought I covered the bases but something is supposed to be redirecting to null output that is not.

[Jason W]

Importupdatecheck updated to reflect current changes.

[yoshi314]

that might be a stupid question to ask, but is there a package that will provide user with basic system?

something like libc+coreutils+util-linux+zlib+bzip2 (and probably more) ?

we could use some kind of repository of metapackages that would reference certain commonly encountered sets, as now it's mostly trial and error and i often end up with sce's duplicating certain libraries, despite my best efforts not to.

i would really like as little things reused as possible between sce's. obviously best way might be 1:1 deb-sce conversion, but it would be very mundane task.

[Jason W]

If we ask 10 people what makes up a basic system, we would get 10 different answers.  Same with a desktop, network, or ultimedia collection.  Most folks here recognize the base and busybox as a basic system.  I know what you are saying though.  I would rather have a thread where folks posted package lists that make up their preference of a base, small desktop, large desktop, office, multimedia, etc.  One can just copy and paste that list and import it.

As for duplicating files and libraries, that does not happen when using the dependency option which is the whole point of the recent changes.   Regardless of the size of an sce, if it is used as a dependency then there will be no duplicate packages between it and sce's that are imported using it id as a dep.  If you have a base.sce and use it as a dep for a desktop.sce, then any package dependencies needed by desktop.sce that are in base.sce will not be included in desktop.sce since they exist in base.sce.  And if you import multimedia.sce using desktop.sce, then any package dependencies needed by multimedia that are in either base.sce or desktop.sce will not be included in multimedia.  And so on and so forth, use multimedia.sce as a dep and any packages existing in base, desktop, and multimedia will not be included in the resulting sce.  This goes for meta sce's as well as actual packages.

If libraries are being duplicated between sce's that are imported using the "-d" option, that is a bug and please report the specifics. 

Thanks.

[Jason W]

Added the ability to deal with circular dependencies, a safety measure.  Please test.