Packaging ros' files

[Sebastian Schmidt]

Moin!

What do you think about a package system for reactos' files? We could
create seperate packages for, e.g. ntoskrnl, explorer,
drivers-networking, drivers-video, etc. pp., so it would be more easy
for users to upgrade. (ros-get update and ros-get upgrade or so)

I'd like to implement this, but I still have some open questions:
- What about overwriting files which are currently "in use"? Is it
  possible to overwrite them w/o rebooting?
- We need a mechanism for postinst scripts, which update registry values
  and so on. cmd.exe scripts are ugly, as VBScript is. bash on
  windows/reactos is IMHO also not the best way. Maybe the package
  installation system (the dpkg/rpm equivalent) could parse a special
  script file with the syntax like NetInstall Script. What to you think?

Sebastian
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[Christoph von Wittich]

> We need a mechanism for postinst scripts, which update registry values
>
> and so on. cmd.exe scripts are ugly, as VBScript is. bash on
>  windows/reactos is IMHO also not the best way. Maybe the package
>  installation system (the dpkg/rpm equivalent) could parse a special
>  script file with the syntax like NetInstall Script. What to you think?

Why another script language? I though ROS should be compatible with MS
Windows...

What's about MS Shell "Codename Monad"?
http://www.sellsbrothers.com/news/showTopic.aspx?ixTopic=1431

Christoph von Wittich

On Mon, Oct 25, 2004 at 12:09:31AM +0200, Sebastian Schmidt wrote:
> Moin!
>
> What do you think about a package system for reactos' files? We could
> create seperate packages for, e.g. ntoskrnl, explorer,
> drivers-networking, drivers-video, etc. pp., so it would be more easy
> for users to upgrade. (ros-get update and ros-get upgrade or so)

There has already been some discussion on this, point is, it isn't as
easy as it seems. Basing it on apt-get, portage and msi has been
suggested.
> I'd like to implement this, but I still have some open questions:
> What about overwriting files which are currently "in use"? Is it
> possible to overwrite them w/o rebooting?

It is possible, but it could break compatibility for kernel components
iirc.
> We need a mechanism for postinst scripts, which update registry values
> and so on. cmd.exe scripts are ugly, as VBScript is. bash on
> windows/reactos is IMHO also not the best way. Maybe the package
> installation system (the dpkg/rpm equivalent) could parse a special
> script file with the syntax like NetInstall Script. What to you think?

how about msi?

Also, i think it's very important to do some analysis on what we need
first and summarize what it should do exactly. I made a start here:

http://129.125.140.135/~mark/ros_distro.pdf

But never got very far. If you want to continue on it i can send you the
latex file.

At least i think going coding straight away might be a very bad plan...

Mark