Modification of the Default Package Set

(AKA How to Exclude OSCAR Package from the Default Package Set)

Overview

Since OSCAR supports several Linux distributions and a large set of OSCAR packages, it is possible that, for a specific release, some OSCAR packages are not supported on specific Linux distributions. In order to ease the user’s life, a list of packages that have to be excluded may be defined for each Linux distribution.

Implementation

The directory share/package_set may have files describing OSCAR packages that have to be excluded for specific Linux distribution. When OSCAR runs, a list of OSCAR packages is created. During this step, OSCAR checks if the directory share/package_set does not contain a file associated to the current distribution.

For instance, on Debian-3 x86, OSCAR will check if the file debian-3-i386.txt exists. If the file exists, OSCAR reads the file and excludes all packages read from the file. If the file does not exist, only packages excluded by default (list in script/populate_default_package_set) are excluded.

The pattern of files in share/package_set is {distro}-{version}-{archi}.txt (e.g. fc-4-i386.txt). Each line of this file should give the name of a single OSCAR package.

In order to get the list of excluded OPKG, it is possible to use the function get_excluded_opkg provided by Package.pm.

TODO

1/ The current implementation works only on the headnode, i.e., it is not possible to have different lists for the headnode and images. That has to be fixed.[[BR]] 2/ The current list of excluded OPKG is done via a text file, separated from OPKGs. However, the fact that an OPKG is not supported on a specific Linux distribution should be specified in the config.xml file.[[BR]]