Feeds

[ddjolley]

I have an SL-5000 which I acquired several years ago.  I never was able to get into it and I think one of the reasons was that I never could figure out how feeds work.  Now I'm trying again.  I reflashed the rom with the bootstrap image.  I notice that the comments in /etc/ipkg.conf say that I must have at least 1 src and 1 destination entry.  There are several destination entries but no src entry.  However, I can still install packages.  How I can do that without a src entry in /etc/ipkg.conf is a complete mystery to me and I have no idea where these packages are comming from.  It's clear that I need to understand how this ipkg/feeds thing works a whole lot better.  So, my question is:  Is there some documentaion somewhere that explains this in detail?  Thanks for any input.

    ... doug

[alan]

dear ddjolley,

your question is really strange... you say you don't understand anything to feeds, but you use the bootstrap image ? you like challenge, don't you ?

what you noticed in the /etc/ipkgconfig file is (i think) a piece of crap that should be re-writed or erased in next version... What it means is that to install anything on your Z, you need somewhere to install it ! for example, you can have a line like this

Code: [Select]

dest root /
that will make understand the package manager where to install files when you precise you want them in "root"

About the src lines, they are just here for non defaults feeds. see this page for an exemple :
http://openzaurus.org/wordpress/2005/04/23/machine-feeds/
but required feeds are already set in. that is why you can install progs, even if no src lines are precised in the file.

hope this will help you... otherwise, if you definitely give up using your Z, you can still give it to developpers (or to me... it won't be as useful, but why not...   )

[ddjolley]

Thanks, Alan, for the response.

Well, knowing that there are default feeds explains a lot.  Unfortunately, I think I still have quite a
ways to go.  I would sure like to know exactly what the default feeds are and how they are set.  For example, are they compiled in or are they configurable somewhere?  Then, I would like to know how
the package manager decides where to source a particular package if it is available from more than
one feed.  Basically, I'm just trying to figure out exactly how this all works.

> your question is really strange... you say you don't understand anything to feeds, but you use the  > bootstrap image ? you like challenge, don't you ?

To some it may seem like the more or most difficult approach.  To me, it simplifies things a lot.
I'm a command-line sort of guy.  Anytime I belly up to a GUI, that's where bad things start happening.
GUIs are nice as a convenience after one understands the basics.  It's like calculators are a nice convenience once one knows basic 4-function arithmetic; but, they shouldn't be a substitue for
learning basic arithmethc skills.  I'm just trying to learn the basics of the hardware and OZ.  After
I've done that, I can always add a GUI.

Thanks again for the input.

     ... doug