auto configuration systems

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sat, 15 Apr 2017 16:55:53 +0200, Xen wrote:
>>> I just wonder if there are any smaller, more down to earth
>>> systems?  
>> 
>> Not that I know of.  
>
>Hmm.
>
>Meanwhile Ralph says that Arch has support of it but he hasn't said 
>anything about actually using that :p.

Arch makes it easier to e.g. write wrapper scripts. I'm not using a
wrapper for pacman [1] (quasi Arch's apt), but could do so, to e.g.
automatically build jack2, if there should be a soname issue after an
upgrade.

You could als write a wrapper script around apt, but then rebuilding an
Ubuntu package is much more effort, so writing the wrapper is more
work, too.

Ubuntu provides tools such as:

dpkg-divert --add --rename --divert foo.real foo

Arch has got a single config file to do similar things, for example when
installing packages, don't install the files mentioned by "NoExtract":

[root at moonstudio weremouse]# grep No /mnt/archlinux/etc/pacman.conf 
#NoUpgrade   =
NoExtract   = usr/share/xsessions/gnome.desktop usr/share/xsessions/gnome-fallback.desktop usr/share/xsessions/gnome-flashback-compiz.desktop usr/share/xsessions/openbox-kde.desktop usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.knopwob.dunst.service usr/share/xsessions/openbox.desktop usr/share/xsessions/lxqt.desktop etc/xdg/autostart/parcellite-startup.desktop usr/share/applications/xfburn.desktop usr/share/applications/xed.desktop usr/share/applications/org.gnome.gedit.desktop #usr/share/applications/ardour.desktop

Sure, Ubuntu has got the file /var/lib/dpkg/diversions, but Arch's
file pacman.conf e.g. also contains the list of repositories. This is not a
big advantage, the really big advantage is the package management, the rules
how to build packages. Another advantage is the documentation of official
Arch tools, as well as how to customize a Linux install, independent of
the used distro.

[1]
[weremouse at moonstudio ~]$ su
Password: 
[root at moonstudio weremouse]# systemd-nspawn -qD /mnt/archlinux/ pacman -Syu
Failed to create directory /mnt/archlinux/sys/fs/selinux: Read-only file system
Failed to create directory /mnt/archlinux/sys/fs/selinux: Read-only file system
:: Synchronizing package databases...
 core is up to date
 extra is up to date
 community is up to date
 multilib is up to date
:: Starting full system upgrade...
warning: adwaita-icon-theme: ignoring package upgrade (3.18.0-1 => 3.22.0+1+g58cd459e-1)
warning: clawsker: local (1.1.0-1) is newer than extra (1.0.1-1)
warning: gnome-themes-standard: ignoring package upgrade (3.18.0-1 => 3.22.2-1)
warning: gvfs: local (2013.08.18-1) is newer than extra (1.30.3+4+gd79b4650-1)
warning: hunspell-en: ignoring package upgrade (7.1-3 => 2017.01.22-2)
warning: jack2: local (1.9.10.r261.g2d1d3235-1) is newer than community (1.9.10-6)
warning: mate-calc: ignoring package upgrade (1.8.0-2 => 1.18.0-1)
warning: pulseaudio: local (2013.08.18-1) is newer than extra (10.0-2)
 there is nothing to do
[root at moonstudio weremouse]#