TODO.md

Showstoppers

Things a package manager must have (and ours needs to work)

• proper environment creation

  • storage of environment settings

• toolsets (KEY FEATURE)

  • defines a set of build depenencies

  • name -> list of deps, example:

    shell: dash base: coreutils bin: binutils compiler: gcc

• support for running with another libc!

  • plan:
    • Make sure when environment is created we have a symlink ld-linux in the env at all times (try make it pickable)
      • Make this some kind of ensure function that is run when ever the environment is changed
      • By default have this link to proper libc
    • add a pure which sets environment up explicitly to make builds more reliable, half way to chroot basically
  • notes:
    • see: http://stackoverflow.com/a/851229/138948 -Wl,--dynamic-linker=/path/to/newglibc/ld-linux.so.2
    • hope that are standard null termination binary patch overwrite technique will work
    • If not see here for tips on ELF patching: http://siddhesh.in/journal/2011/03/27/changing-the-default-loader-for-a-program-in-its-elf/
    • Also see this relocatable patch: http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit.cgi/poky/plain/meta/recipes-core/eglibc/eglibc-2.17/relocatable_sdk.patch

• file hashing:

  • store the hash of the files in a package
  • handle the has of files with install path offsets

• chroot builds (KEY FEATURE)

  • other utils?
  • manually map bash because we need a shell
  • setup system to create a "build env"
  • install build deps into the env
  • run the build in there
  • figure out if we need python in there

Nice to haves

• mini-toolset to test toolset support on:

  • busybox - replaces coreutils (maybe toybox)
  • uclibc - replaces glibc (or maybe musl it's smaller)
  • tcc - replaces gcc + binutils

• output to stdout/stderr and to a log file for builds: http://stackoverflow.com/a/4985080/138948

• search all package descriptions

• long form package descriptions

• use the python logger for tracing

• handle dependencies with versions somehow properly with multipkgs

• add support for a check/test step (libgmp, libmpfr have "make check")

• add the concept of package input hashing (commands and files, to make the file cache more reliable)

• add some way to easily check/configure environment variables

• environment audit function which checks for:

  • files that don't belong
  • files which are owned by two packages

• only warn about a directory having files (on removal) if no other package has files in that directory

• decide on system packages:

  • opengl, x11, and eventually wayland, xmir
  • can't build opengl, it comes from the vendor
  • need a way to install these in chroot, need a way to create these header only packages, and pull in the needed binaries into the chroot

• xz compression support, see: https://github.com/peterjc/backports.lzma

  • then we can support newer coreutils version

• info support for XPD files

• support for multiple download sources for the same file, allowing for slightly more robust file fetching

Docs

• Document use cases:

  • package a set of pre-existing files
  • package an existing library
  • package an existing command line program

• Document file formats:

  • package-name.xpd - format
  • xpkg.yml - format (see PackageBuilder.build method)

• Steps in building a package:

  • Install build deps

    • Fetch the descriptions for all packages
    • Validate versions to make sure things will work
    • Topo sort our dep graph
    • Install things in order

  • Compile & Install:

    • Download needed sources
    • Compile
    • Install

  • Form binary package:

    • Build metafile
    • Package files
    • Build package