On Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 6:19 PM Clem Cole wrote: > 1) No intention to slight debian in any way. > 2) dpkg was definitely an improvement over FreeBSds ports scheme. But... > In fact freebsd did have a pkg system for ports before that --- which was > basically similar to 1983 SysIII scheme > FreeBSD's ports/pkg system did keep track of what was installed on the system. There was a database in /var/db so pkg_delete could remove things and pkg_which to know what pkg a given file belonged to. It was first-ish, but there was some package system for the early linux root disks. I think this is how SLS started, but I might be misremembering. But despite being early, and being ported to other BSDs, it sucked at upgrading for 20-odd years until it was completely rewritten.... latter day pkg is so much better, though its repo management has been a little weak relative to the professional efforts in the linux world. /usr/ports none the less was ground breaking because it handled both the local patching, the build depends and the packaging under one umbrella. It's been on the whole a good thing and has reinvented itself several times over the years. When I was managing SunOS systems it seemed like everyone rolled their own. There was nothing like VMSINSTALL... Warner 3) also as I understand (and larry feel free to correct me here as a better > chronicler of things Linux than I) but I believe that the big thing rpm > added was the DB like DEC's setld and system Sun had used which us what I > was refering too. > > Pls remember that I was trying to chronicle the basic ideas and some of > the motivation which is what Henry asked. And that the original driver > was to support ISVs installs. So I was trying to explain the history of > what we did at the time. > > The be fair one of the more vocal people in the early 80s was Heinz who > occasionally add color here. I remember Heinz trying to push us to an ABI > and not stop at an API. > > Today most of the ISVs have abandoned Unix except for the Mac. Msft and > the phones have taken that. And the package mngr has been replaced by the > app store which has.much great use than any of the current Unix packaging > schemes. Funny how the profit motive drove that. > > Working for one of the few ISVS that do package SW for Unix we basically > support two schemes. Apple Mac installs and RPM because that is were the > primary customer base has been. I'd not about goodness or being better or > being first. It's economic (Larry and I bemoan this a lot). > > So pls don't take it as a comment about anything other than trying to > answer as much of the early history as I could. > > Heinz, Jon, Larry you all lived this on the commercial side. Care to add > anything? > > Clem > > On Sat, Nov 21, 2020 at 6:31 PM Gregg Levine > wrote: > >> Hello! >> I, myself normally run Slackware Linux. It uses package management in >> the form of compressed tar files, and a flat file store of the names. >> It also has a tool which when run will show the user what's there, and >> what they do if need be. In fact Slackware predates Red Hat by about >> four years. (Pat and his CS professor introduced themselves to one >> much earlier one, which was SLS. Neither liked it, and the Prof was >> convinced that Pat could do better.) >> ----- >> Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8@gmail.com >> "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." >> >> On Sat, Nov 21, 2020 at 1:54 PM wrote: >> > >> > Things were pretty much ad hoc. Commercial software likely came >> > as tar/cpio tapes to install however the vendor wanted. Free software >> > was from USENET in source code, so again, however people wanted. >> > >> > The AT&T Unix PC (7300 / 3B1) in the late 80s had a file format >> > for installing software from floppy and tracked what was installed, >> > but that was unique to it. >> > >> > Package managers as we know them today really became a big thing >> > with Linux. Redhat's RPM was one of the earliest. >> > >> > My two cents; I'm sure others remember it differently. >> > >> > Arnold >> > >> > Henry Bent wrote: >> > >> > > Hello All, >> > > >> > > I know I have asked this before, but I am curious about any new >> replies or >> > > insight. How did package management start? Were sites keeping track >> of >> > > packages installed in a flat file that you could grep (as god >> intended) >> > > somewhere, or were upgrades and additions simply done without >> significant >> > > announcement? At what point did someone decide, 'Hey, we need to >> have a >> > > central way to track additional software"? >> > > >> > > I know of DEC's setld and SGI's inst in the latter half of the '80s. >> What >> > > was the mechanism before that? >> > > >> > > -Henry >> > >> > -- > Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual >