PeeWeeLinux Ideas

[Adi Linden]

Hi Ralph,

> > Package Names
> > -------------
> > 
> > Would it make sense to start adding a version numer similar to what RedHat
> > does? Like creating thttpd-1.2.3-1.tar for the initial release. 
> 
> Sounds great, then maybe you could also just download a patch file to 
> go from xxx-1.2.3-1 to xxx-1.2.3-2 (but these are binaries hmmm...not
> sure about that)

Nope, won't work with binary files...

> > File List
> > ---------
> > 
> > If you look at the Embedded_Build directory, there is a file called
> > Filelist (I think) which contains the package names and files associated
> > with it. Would it make sense to keep a file like it, indicating the
> > included package name and the related files?
> > 
> 
> Hey, I did this as part of my pwl_update script. I go through the entire
> packages directory and list every file into one file .root.list or 
> something like that.  Very handy to help speed up the searching for 
> a specific file...

So I wasn't the first to think of it :) Good stuff.

> > As one of the todo tasks I want to eliminate duplicate files in packages.
> > 
> Great! Thats one problem I'm having...trying to find a package for a file
> and finding it in multiple places.  Also, the extraction continues to 
> give errors when a file is duplicated...

And it's confusing to extract thesame file multiple times.

> Since pwl_config builds and maintains a list for "internal" use, you 
> could put most anything here that would make it easy for people to use.
> This could be rather time consuming to maintain, but any information
> like this would be unique to Pee Wee Linux (I can't find docs for most 
> of the other small Linux file systems :-(

I just don't want to 'overkill'. Since the README files are already there
there might not be a need to duplicate the info, especially if the package
info is there while using pwlconfig.

I was thinking of creating the filelist using a script.

> > Distributing PWL
> > ----------------
>
> I think this problem is now being solved on some lists with CVS.  You
> can check any one latest file or just give an update command to get
> all the changes since your last update.  Or you can checkout all files
> up to some version number.  Haven't been able to try this yet myself...

I am not sure if CVS is really necessary. What about having an
uncompressed PeeWeeLinux tree (contents of Embedded_Build) on the server
and using rsync to synchronize the local copy with the remote copy. That
should be pretty painless and easy. I could even do a script that does
that :) So to upgrade your Embedded_Build directory just run an rsync
job...

> > Closing
> > -------
> > 
> > This all comes to mind because I will have a crude X package compiled from
> > sources soon. This will add some 40MB to the source distribution. I think
> > it's a bit of a waste to have to download a 50MB file for some minor
> > changes... I guess there's always the binary distribution.
> > 
> 
> Ouch!  I think if the patch files aren't too hard to create, I'd love to 
> just load the source from my Red Hat disk and do the patch.  Now my source
> matches yours and I didn't need a big download.  Of course, you could
> just order the Pee Wee Linux distro CD which has it all :-)

Burning a PeeWeeLinux distro CD is no problem. Get to put my CD burner to
good use ;-)  Actually, maybe I could send the sourceforge people a CD
everytime...?

I had a difficult time getting X to run on the ipix. So I choose to
download the latest and compile from scratch. I did the download prior to
thinking about the tar.gz files from the RedHat SRPMS.

Still need to find a way to extract the tar.gz file only from a source
rpm. Then we could add a step to the package build process...

- Extract blah.tar.gz frpm blah.src.rpm
- Extract blah.tar.gz
- Apply blah.patch
- Run ./build_pwl/blah/build_pwl.sh
- Voila, we have a new package

Without the first step I need to include the sources for everything
deviating from the precompiled RedHat binaries.

> More thoughts...
> 
> I've been thinking about all the dozens of little linux's out there and
> how we could take advantage of all the work done for them. (Granted, most
> are for different kernels, but that may be only a temporary problem).
> 
> What if:
> 
> Embedded_Build\packages        contains directories:
>    PeeWeeLinux
>    LinuxRouterProject
>    LEM
>    Toms_linux
>    tiny_linux
>    embedded_linux
>    mobile_linux
>    ...
> 
> One of the configuration options for a project would be to select the
> distribution you preferr.  pwl_config could only work within that
> distribution directory and you could try out different distributions.
> Or you could pick and choose some files from various distros...
> 
> Of course, now the sources directory just went deeper too.
> Maybe something to thinkabout down the road...

Every little distro is different. The LinuxRouterProject is very different
in how the packages work. So that's why I started PWL. There wasn't
anything to fit my need. The other big complained. Barely any docs with
any of the other little distros. Someone ought to slap me though. I am not
any better. So far docs aren't much further than your pwlconfig info and
my promises....

Sooo... thinking about the rsync... I think that would be neat... Saved a
lot of bandwith!

So the next release of PWL could be an iso image, a cd... Anything you can
think of :)

TTYL,
Adi


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