Pkgsrc on Minix

[Johnny Lam]

Is pkgsrc on Minix a fork of the main pkgsrc repository or are the changes used to make pkgsrc itself and packages work on Minix contributed back upstream?

-- Johnny C. Lam

[Jean-Baptiste Boric]

Hi,

Is pkgsrc on Minix a fork of the main pkgsrc repository or are the changes used to make pkgsrc itself and packages work on Minix contributed back upstream?

I'm not aware of the details, but the MINIX pkgsrc git repository is a snapshot import and the upstream repository does not seems to have much MINIX 3-specific changes. It's pretty much a fork.

[Johnny Lam]

Why does Minix pretend to be NetBSD for pkgsrc purposes? I understand that there is an eventual goal to be compatible with NetBSD at the source level when building software, but that is nowhere close yet. GNU config.guess will still detect Minix based on the output of uname(1), which will affect the configuration of all software that uses GNU autoconf.

If the goal is to minimize the amount of changes that need to be made to packages or to pkgsrc to support Minix, I think we can do it in a better way that preserves Minix as a separate OS from NetBSD.

[Jean-Baptiste Boric]

Why does Minix pretend to be NetBSD for pkgsrc purposes?

This was fixed recently in master (http://git.minix3.org/index.cgi?p=minix.git;a=commit;h=117b6ea00345c1559dda32fe246e18bcddea9322). The NetBSD's userland has a tendency to think it's NetBSD unless instructed otherwise.

[Johnny Lam]

I was referring more to the changes in pkgsrc/mk and pkgsrc/bootstrap where they attempt to cast Minix as an "OS variant" of NetBSD.

[Jean-Baptiste Boric]

I was referring more to the changes in pkgsrc/mk and pkgsrc/bootstrap where they attempt to cast Minix as an "OS variant" of NetBSD.

That was introduced with this commit : http://git.minix3.org/index.cgi?p=pkgsrc-ng.git;a=commit;h=bc17d767a5175947d6eafba2a0a28e651bd126b1

I'm only an occasional contributor so I don't know the details, but it looks like it's cheaper (from a maintenance point of view) to spin MINIX as a NetBSD variant rather than as its own fully-fledged operating system. As you said, packages will not be deceived by this, but the pkgsrc framework will do the right things by default instead of assuming the worst.  

[Johnny Lam]

I am going to add MINIX3 as a fully-supported first-class OS for pkgsrc so that we don't need to use this hack.  I think in the long term this will be better for MINIX3 as a project.  It also avoids the issue of where people expect "NetBSD" to mean the operating systems along the NetBSD release chain, and not an "OS variant" of Minix that the NetBSD Project does not officially recognize.

[Lionel Sambuc]

I didn't felt like changing, and resolving conflicts every time we synchronise, in the 600 or so pkgsrc Makefiles which test on OPSYS==NetBSD.

As for the config.guess, as part of the pkgsrc steps, it gets automatically replaced by the one provided by the PKGSRC framework.

Why most of this has not yet been up streamed? The last time I synchronized was the second time I was able to do so without major changes in core, root packages due to major changes in the compatibility provided on MINIX.

I expect (or would like to see happening soon) one last major change before pushing the patches upstream: importing libpthread, with a pure userland threads implementation. This will remove the need for most of the patching we currently have, and solve issues on about 30% of the packages currently failing to build.

That is, assuming the "hack" is still there; Otherwise someone will need to keep adding OPSYS==Minix every time a test against NetBSD is added or modified.

It is my opinion that presenting Minix as a variant of NetBSD is a good option, as it allows to differentiate when needed, taking into account the fact that the difference between Minix and NetBSD is small, and keeps reducing as we replace, or import, userland support libraries and tools with their NetBSD counterparts. 

Kind regards,

Lionel

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[Antoine LECA]

On 2017-01-26 20:05Z, Johnny Lam a écrit :
> I am going to add MINIX3 as a fully-supported first-class OS for pkgsrc so
> that we don't need to use this hack. I think in the long term this will be
> better for MINIX3 as a project.

For this to really work, you need to be recognized by the Pkgsrc team as
to be in charge of MINIX. This would allow you to have the required
write access to the pkgsrc repository, where you will be able to push
the MINIX-related changes "up-stream".

The obvious point is that it needs a very significant involvement, well
over the currently available resources of MINIX as a project: which is
obviously why that work has not been already done!


Antoine

[Johnny Lam]

I am jl...@NetBSD.org. I can update the MINIX support in pkgsrc directly. I'm currently exploring the differences between NetBSD and MINIX from a 3rd party software perspective so that I can appropriately make changes to pkgsrc.