[OpenIndiana-discuss] gdb debugger

[Peter Tribble]

On Mon, Nov 17, 2025 at 5:06 PM Till Wegmüller <toasterson at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Reg
>
> OpenIndiana is reproducable.


Not really. The ask here would be that, given a system with an arbitrary
set of packages
installed, that a new system can be created with exactly those packages. If
the repo is
ever pruned, that will not be possible.

Now, OmniOS satisfies that requirement - I've used it to guarantee that
production systems
behave identically, and to install packages on machines many years old.
Tribblix is fully
reproducible for about a year, then partially reproducible for a couple of
years longer (the
latest update of a given release stays available for that length of time).


> We just have too many reproducable states
> that overwhelm client Memory usage because it gets to Multi Gigabyte
> JSON files just listing the cache Actions for fast catalog building.
> Which is a action every client has to make on catalog refresh. IPS's
> dependency resolution is purely client side.
>
> The Issue is, that we cannot know which version of cosolidation you have
> installed and keep that version. We also create a new version (which as
> 3k entries)


A quick wc on the userland consolidation is over 9000 packages, which
indicates
that it's 3x larger than that. My guess here is that the consolidation can
be trimmed
significantly - there are a lot of *very* old packages in it that can't
possibly be useful
on a current system (especially as the repo gets pruned) - it's not clear
to me how
useful incorporating obsolete packages is.

Locking all the versions together is potentially a powerful feature, as it
*should* allow
you to prevent incompatible packages being installed. Unfortunately as far
as I can
tell there is no version dependency information present, which has the
downside that
if there any incompatibilities introduced then you guarantee a broken
installation.


> at every package build. And we build a ton of packages.
>
> Hope this helps a bit understanding the situation, I personally have no
> recipe to fix this without patching IPS to be looser on consolidations
> and thus breaking some expectations the consolidations have.
>

Or maybe splitting up the consolidations? Each consolidation then gets
updated less frequently, reducing the overall churn.


> -Till
>
> On 11/16/25 15:27, Reginald Beardsley via openindiana-discuss wrote:
> > I did the full  update and installed gdb.
> > root at hipster:~# pkg install gdb
> >             Packages to install:  3
> >              Services to change:  1
> >         Create boot environment: No
> > Create backup boot environment: No
> >
> > DOWNLOAD                                PKGS         FILES    XFER (MB)
>  SPEED
> > Completed                                3/3       169/169      7.4/7.4
> 514k/s
> >
> > PHASE                                          ITEMS
> > Installing new actions                       247/247
> > Updating package state database                 Done
> > Updating package cache                           0/0
> > Updating image state                            Done
> > Creating fast lookup database                   Done
> > root at hipster:~# beadm list
> > BE                     Active Mountpoint Space   Policy Created
> > 2021-04-30             -      -          153.33M static 2021-06-20 01:22
> > test                   -      -          50.34M  static 2021-06-22 07:31
> > openindiana-2025:01:13 -      -          123.00M static 2025-01-13 05:34
> > openindiana-2025:06:28 -      -          34.55M  static 2025-06-28 15:29
> > 2025.10                -      -          709.12K static 2025-11-14 10:34
> > openindiana-2025:11:14 NR     /          25.75G  static 2025-11-14 10:35
> > root at hipster:~#
> > We  can afford to keep a mounted snapshot of the repository so that "pkg
> install <name>" works 5 months later without requiring a full update.
> > No branches.  Just the IPS system works for more than 4 months.  The
> current model breaks IPS every 4 months.  That is nuts!  It create a
> situation where lack of resources for a full upgrade can prevents loading
> the tools to find out why!
> > Mount the snapshots RO.   It's not space intensive nor is it complex.
> It's a snapshot of the system mounted properly for IPS to work.  Whatever
> "release" is installed provides a static repeatable image at any time in
> the future.  In short:
> > "pkg install gdb" should *always* work and provide the gdb in the
> repository at the release point.
> > I should expect that it's clear how to implement the mounts, but if not
> let me know.  I've transparently resolved mounts across multiple
> architectures.
> > If I have 2 systems with the same "release" installed,  even if they are
> updated with a pkg install at different times, they should both be the same.
> > If an OI install is not reproducible then I see no reason to use or
> support it.   I'm just moving onto this is as my primary system and asking
> if I should continue.  It sat powered off for several years until this
> year.  I used a Linux test machine for a while or  a much older Hipster
> install.
> > Have Fun!Reg
> > _______________________________________________
> > openindiana-discuss mailing list
> > openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org
> > https://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
>
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> openindiana-discuss at openindiana.org
> https://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss
>


-- 
-Peter Tribble
http://www.petertribble.co.uk/ - http://ptribble.blogspot.com/