Here is an idea I had recently about a new (?) project. Please post about any comment, idea, suggestion, participation, feasability, usability, need for it, ... ========= The idea ========= A client/server architecture for up to date bin distribution. Server part: This is where the big stuff is. The latest up to date code for a particular program/package (or any version, but the goal is to always have the latest up to date version) would be on the server and the actual binary would be produced on the fly depending on the options required by the client. This would require either a collaboration from developpers or some other mean (like rsync or ?). Of course there is a caching mechanism for not recompiling the same binary/options combination all the time. Client part: The client mount a directory (like binfs, libfs or sbinfs) with either general options or program/package specific options. There is a preconfigured default on the server side so the client only need to provide the cpu arch. The client could also have a caching mechanism depending on the configuration. ============ implementation ============ This could be implemented in a diskless client mounting a NFS root either on the client side, or on the NFS server side. It could also be implemented on any kind of workstation with a syncronisation mechanism when the computer is linked to the network. The actual software implementation is not yet "on the table", it's still in the thought process. This is just the beginning of the idea. One can easily think about the many possibilities. Please feel free to discuss about it. - Alexandre
