Quite some time ago I failed miserably and repeatedly at installing LFS but this time I think it's going to work. I'm currently just about to begin part three (time to chroot into new system and rebuild everything).

I've tinkered with Linux for many years now and picked up on a few concepts, but never became fluent. Just to give you an idea, today I was able to mount a usb drive, deal with generic file operations, switch terminals, etc. But I had to relearn the syntax for extracting a foo.tar.bz2 file, and when I wanted to delete all the *.bmp files scattered throughout subdirectories, I was at a total loss. I found myself reading a bash tutorial and decided I would worry about it later. Why am I telling you this? My hope is that it can help someone make a recommendation as to how (if at all) I manage packages.

After searching google, lfs hints, and here, I have found three possible solutions:

1) Using users to manage packages
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/hint...nd_pkg_man.txt

2) paco
http://paco.sourceforge.net/

3) slackware's pkgtool

I really like the concept of number one and the reasons as far as keeping the packages' rights limited. honestly though, I wouldn't know what to do if "something went wrong" as I've read can happen with this system. does that make sense?

I almost went with paco, until I read this (url)
and I've heard some ambiguously good things about pkgtool on lfs. that's all I know.

So... What should I use?

I am a n00b at LFS and am not so skilled at linux, but I am trying the first option. I figure that it will help me learn the most about my system and allow me to have control. I admit that I have screwed things up several times, but this is just a toy project for me so I can afford to. The notes walk you through an installation and also tells you of potential problems that will crop up during the remainder of the LFS installation. (Although I ran into more). It is a nice set of training wheels. So I have been able to deal with future problems (although it is not getting a tad annoying.) I don't know about the other options, but that is just my opinion on the first.

i recommend aptitude

I am using paco. A ruby script handles the creation of the binaries
and paco drops a binary into /Depot/pkg (which is where i store my
binaries)

After I compiled it once, i now have a binary ready to deploy on
other systems.


IF you are experienced enough, I recommend you paco. Because, I am
selfish
I want to see paco being used much more, so that it can improved,
and it could be used to make people independant of bigger vendors
supplying stuff. (Mind you, if you want to be convenient, then
using paco is probably not for you. I, though, do want to know
how things work. I dont want to stand not-knowing about things)

Btw
"Using users to manage packages"

Seems like a GOOD choice but a bit extra work...
I think stuff like a sandboxed-install can be achieved in another
way, like building in a chrooted (or whatever) environment.
Nothing will escape there too, so you dont need permission
on users.

I dont think every package should get its own user.
I feel its not really beautiful. :/


But its up to everyone on his own to use what he likes
(and one day I am gonna extend my ruby scripts to
support exactly this, and seriously test it on my own.)