[OpenIndiana-discuss] from the lost to the river

[James Carlson]

On 10/1/2012 5:56 PM, Roel_D wrote:
> Your questions are more like " things you wanted to know about OpenIndiana, but were afraid to ask" 
> 
> Good questions and good answers. 
> 
> I still don't know what IPS really is....

"Image Packaging System"

It's a software packaging scheme that was designed during the
OpenSolaris days as a replacement for the old SysV packaging system.
The big change is that it's based on a client/server model, where (at
least in the first implementation) the server was a required part of the
software upgrade mechanism.

The old SysV packaging system had a disk format that delivered files,
including scripts that ran at installation.  IPS does not, and instead
has a set of pre-determined actions that can be taken during upgrade or
install of a file.  The lack of scripting is an important improvement --
the old scripting mechanisms allowed software developers to deliver
arbitrary horrors inside scripts, but the new system doesn't allow that.

OpenSolaris (and OpenIndiana) still supports SysV packaging, but the
main software, at least in the main line of code, is delivered via IPS.

-- 
James Carlson         42.703N 71.076W         <carlsonj at workingcode.com>