Work has begun on pacman 2.0, our source/binary package management system. Once complete, we'll have something that has the following:
- Full dependency support, both binary and source
- An integrated apt-get like tool to keep your system up to date
- A very simple ports-like build system that can be configured to follow different version trees and can be updated directly from cvs
- A database very similar to a *bsd system, which follows a simple multiple- textfile format
- Scriptlet support for post-install configuration
As you can see, we're trying to take all the good stuff from package management systems while leaving the other stuff behind. Apt-get is handy but a little too forceful, rpm just never seems to work for long: installing a system isn't bad, but upgrading it is a nightmare. Oh yea, and I hate .spec files. ;)
This new system will give you the best of both worlds. If you prefer binary packages, you can download and install i686-optimized packages with a single command, complete with dependencies. If, however, you prefer to build packages from source, you can do this also, complete with dependencies. This allows you to add build-time customizations, more expensive optimizations, patched versions, and whatever else you could possibly customize. There are some good ideas in line for the next pacman as well, including system profiles and transaction support. Stay tuned.
Also note that you can still sync your ABS build tree with rsync:
# cd /usr/abs && rsync -av archlinux.org::abs .
In the future this duty will be moved to cvsup so users can follow different releases, a la FreeBSD (those guys were thinking). This means that the play-it-safe production server types can follow the STABLE tree while the bleeding-edge workstation types can follow CURRENT.
And once again, we're always open to ideas/thoughts, just email or hop on the IRC channel and bounce ideas off someone.
Oh yea, one more thing: We're two whole months old now!! Wow, talk about being a survivor....
Okay, I'm done.