Re: Package format/management ramblingss

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   > However, having some sort of per-user customizability might be
   > nice too.  Each user could have a package subdir of his home dir.

   Does this mean the user ``contributes'' packages to the system?

I don't like this, consider the following scenario: user A install a
package foo-1.1 that contains a trojan.  User B tries to run this
program unknowingly; and thus gets infected by the trojan (consider
the harm this would do if user B is root).


What one could do if a user wishes to "override" a installed package
is by providing say a enviroment variable, PACKAGE_SEARCH_PATH, where
they list what directories to look in when listing /bin and friends.

But this will produce a completely different problem, one would have
to research /bin (and friends) on each access, or cache all values for
each user.

   In Debian, you have to choose between stable, testing or unstable
   as the release.  Using packages from different releases at the same
   time is possible either by pinning (preferring combination of
   releases) or by installing them in chroot environments.

On the GNU system switching between versions Could be done by
accessing:
/extracted-packages/emacs-VERSION-THAT-ISNT-INSTALL/bin/emacs and
using /bin/address@hidden

   I have another issue related to this one, but I cannot really
   decide whether to post now or to wait.  Not to confuse everyone
   with two related topics at the same time, I am waiting for this one
   for now.  If you are interested, please tell me and I will post
   then.

Please post it; just use a different subject name and you won't be
confusing two different topics.

Happy hacking.