Tiny Core Base > TCB Talk
Potential solution for lack of extensions - source based package manager
blinkkin:
Main problem with Tiny Core Linux is small repository right now. I founded that creating new extensions is easy, but time consuming.
Source based package manager is one of the solutions. With auto downloading source and resolving dependency manager, maintaining extensions and keeping them up to date would be much easier. Here is short example of emerge used in Gentoo:
--- Code: ---emerge --buildpkgonly gnumeric
--- End code ---
This create *.tbz2 binary packages with all dependencies. Unpacking and compressing back to *.tce isn't problem. Besides emerge is writed in python, so hacking could be simple to get something like that:
--- Code: ---emerge --tce gnumeric
--- End code ---
There exist other "recipe" managers like: pkgsrc in NetBSD, moonbase in Lunar Linux, conary in Foresight Linux, pacman with ABS in Arch Linux and emerge/paludis/pkgcore for portage in Gentoo (check also Gentoo Prefix).
Disadvantage is need of bootstraping an toolchain. This means that almost all code should be compiled using manager. Other problem is *.tcz, because symlinks doesn't work for all apps. Probably TCL wouldn't be called standalone distro anymore, but based on other.
In normal Tiny Core Linux manager could be removed. In dev edition TCL would be supplied with source based package manager.
This is just idea, let's start discussion. Sorry for bad/poor English.
tobiaus:
i was thinking about this yesterday when i said: "in the future it should be easier to create websites that do custom distro builds before you even download the .iso." but i was actually thinking of a custom iso builder that used a binary (source included, as robert would insist) repository.
the compiling could/perhaps should be done locally, (i like your idea, if it's possible) but if the future includes tinycore servers that can compile source into custom isos, they could use your idea too. before then i'd like to see a second package manager / option that is capable of downloading and compiling source.
for general use i like what tc has, which is a very lightweight manager that doesn't require compiletc. perhaps it could include a compile feature (inactive) and then integrate with compiletc if compiletc is found. otherwise, it would download from the binary repository as usual.
i think even if you keep it simple like that, its abilities (what it would take to create it) would be very sophisticated. i've tried to compile things using the instructions in the dsl book and i was able to compile zile, but i haven't been able to compile anything more complex so i can't imagine how a package manager would. obviously other people are able to.
blinkkin:
--- Quote from: tobiaus on March 30, 2009, 10:26:02 PM ---for general use i like what tc has, which is a very lightweight manager that doesn't require compiletc. perhaps it could include a compile feature (inactive) and then integrate with compiletc if compiletc is found. otherwise, it would download from the binary repository as usual.
--- End quote ---
I'm not speaking about changing TCL, for end user it'll be same as now. I would like better platform for making extensions. Right now there is no *.tce or *.tcz format of some apps I need for running my TCL.
Few days ago I was compiling wmii, which depends on libixp and dmenu. Newest version of wmii requried libixp from source repository, which is based on mercurial. So I downloaded code of mercurial and compile it. After that I obtained source code of libixp, which requried xlib for compiling. And so on...
As a example, with Source Mage it would be much easier - you need to type just "cast wmii" in console. This "package manager" know all dependencies and is using bash scripts like: "wget ... & configure & make & make install". After that I get binary ready to work on.
I would use extension if it was available, but right now for most apps only way is to compile them on your own. There're portable managers that could be used in TCL to save time of dev team. You see my point?
tobiaus:
oh yeah, i would love to be able to compile things that easily. i mean i can think of a few things that i would compile right now: nice editor, moc, mp3blaster, qemu, i've requested most of them already.
i think there are reasons that compiling in tinycore maybe requires knowing more than in other distros, where it's just configure, make, make install (or something.) maybe it's the same. i like your idea though.
Juanito:
--- Quote ---i think there are reasons that compiling in tinycore maybe requires knowing more than in other distros, where it's just configure, make, make install (or something.) maybe it's the same. i like your idea though.
--- End quote ---
The only other distro I use use is yellowdog and believe me, it is a whole lot easier to compile something in tc than in a package management based distro where you never know what you will break by replacing/updating something in the dependency chain.
Although I no longer use dsl, even compiling in that was sometimes not obvious due to the (relatively) unknown origin of some of the base libs from knoppix.
Compiling in tinycore usually is just as easy as "configure, make, make install" and often when you're missing something in the base install, the missing item is already available as an extension - as an example, the gtk1/gtk2 libs are often required in order to compile software that depends on them and everything you need is already there as an extension.
You should give compiling in tc a go - it's not difficult and there are many people in the forum that would be glad to help.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version