Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[n1mnal]

Using lupu-528.005. I would like to keep most of my non-builtin pets in
sfs's rather than in the pupsave. Such an sfs needs a standard location
for keeping the names and contents lists of the pets (or other pkg types)
from which it was built. Rather than just invent one, I'm asking if the folks who
have been doing this for a while have established a custom, or even tools
for the purpose (I know about pets2sfs, but haven't looked inside yet).

thanks ...

[musher0]

Hello, n1mnal.

Not sure I'm following your drift...

It's a fact that any pet can be converted to a sfs. Although it makes more sense to convert only the larger pets into sfs format.

Now both pet and sfs formats are archives, i.e. compressed formats.

Perhaps you should investigate peazip or even the more advanced functions of xarchiver if you want to put your pets in one archive, and have a list of them. You wouldn't gain much space, though, since pets are already compressed. Perhaps a simple separate directory for easy reference would do the trick?

Or perhaps you want to put a whole lot of pets into one sfs so you can mount them all in one shot? That is possible, too.

But as I said, I am not sure I understand what you want to achieve by this.

Best regards.

[n1mnal]

>Or perhaps you want to put a whole lot of pets into one sfs so you can
>mount them all in one shot?

Yes. I know how to do this (more or less), but such a collection
also needs to have in it a list of what pets are included, and which
files belong to each of them. This is to make it possible to update
an included pet without needing to rebuild the whole thing from scratch.
If the metadata are in a standard location, it becomes worthwhile to
automate the process.

[edit]
For example, how do the developers maintain the devx sfs? (I'm currently
on a Windows box, so I can't just look inside a devx right now.)

[musher0]

Hello, n1mnal.

Before you archive each pet, you could issue this command from the top level of the pet.

[n1mnal]

Thank you for replying, musher0.

But my question was not how to generate this information (I know how
to do that), but where in the sfs file to put it. As far as I have been able
to find out, the Puppy community has not settled on an answer to this
question.

As to why it matters; when I am not running Puppy, I run Another
Distribution (not to start any distribution wars here). This Other
Distribution has a specific directory ("/var/adm/packages") dedicated
to storing a filename list for each installed package. "Clearly" an sfs file
for Puppy "needs" a similar location, but specific to the particular sfs file,
so if one has several sfs files mounted, their table-of-contents files don't
hide one another.

As I said earlier, I could just make up an answer and use it, but having
a standard encourages the collective development of tools.

[musher0]

Hello, n1mnal.

Ah, I see. Thank you very much for the precision.

Then, AFAIK, such catalogue for pet files is in: /var/log/packages/

Also, all the *.pet and *.deb files that one installs through petget or directly are catalogued in : /root/.packages

However, I have checked in 2-3 sfs archives, and I think no similar catalogue at all is used for the SFS archives.

Best regards.

[sunburnt]

SFS files don`t clutter up the file system ( Save file ) like loose file installs do.
So there really isn`t a need to have a SFS files or packages manifest.
That still doesn`t mean that it`s not a good idea though.

For simplicity sake, just put it in the root of the SFS so it`s easy to find !

[technosaurus]

you dont really need one