(25-01-2017, 03:34 PM)josuah Wrote: I like the GoboLinux way too. This takes part of the UNIX-style tree with a solution for some of its drawbacks, as isolation of programs.

On the other hand, if I had to do the same, I would not make an additionnal Index directory, and make the lists straight in the root directories.

(25-01-2017, 04:41 AM)z3bra Wrote: getting programs to install elsewhere than /usr or /usr/local can be a real pain sometimes

From http://sta.li/filesystem

I'm aware of stali's filesystem, and mostly agree that it's a good one. But if you take a close look at it, stali doesn't have gcc, binutils, or anything toolchain related (and I definitely understand why).

In fact MANY MANY MANY programs build recipes include hardcoded path, like ${PREFIX}/share/man, like ${DESTDIR}/lib64, or attrocities like

That simply preventing you from installing directly to / at all. Many hacks exists, like the famous "ln -s . /usr", but one shouldn't have to do this.

(25-01-2017, 07:43 AM)asyncial Wrote: According to the review, it does, but it doesn't have a lot of packages and no ports system, so have you have to compile packages for yourself.

This is a port-like system that you can retrieve it locally to compile softwares for your own system.

(25-01-2017, 03:34 PM)josuah Wrote: I decided to try on Arch linux:

- I ran a busybox shell with <code>busybox sh</code>;
- I moved all the content of <code>/usr</code> to <code>/</code>
- I symlinked <code>/ -> /usr</code>
- I rebooted and everything went fine:

[EDIT] and then I ran pacman and then <code style="color: #990000;">rain of segfaults</code> and I have to reinstall... Not a bad experience, though.

I must say I love and hate arch at the same time. They figured there was a problem: "Hey, installing binaries in 4 different locations is totally stupid!". And they solved it with the most stupid way they could think of: making /usr their REAL /.

I mean, seriously?

(25-01-2017, 03:34 PM)josuah Wrote: I made a package manager in the style of Gobolinux, but using ~/programs and ~/.local instead of /Programs and /System/Index.

Sound fun! I like that you managed to keep the recipes as small as possible, making it easy to create new recipes.

There is no version checking, making it impossible to update your packages in bulk, but this is an interresting choice IMO, as it makes the whole script way simpler both for the code and the usage.
I would have put the "broken symlink" management in the remove() function though, as that's technically the only moment where symlinks will be broken (unless I missed something).
Also, I'm curious as to if all your exported variables are actually used. For example, if you install "libncurse" and then compile "vi" statically against it, will it effectively use your "local" ncurse, or the system-wide one?