[Info-vax] Installing and using GNV - some feedback and questions

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2016-10-24 23:52:04 +0000, Craig A. Berry said:

> On 10/24/16 7:42 AM, John Reagan wrote:
>> On Sunday, October 23, 2016 at 2:49:53 PM UTC-4, Craig A. Berry wrote:
>>> On 10/23/16 11:50 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> 
>>>> It looks like some of my comments may be based on my wrong belief that 
>>>> the updated tools could be used without installing the base kit.
>>> 
>>> They can. I believe John Reagan said he did the LLVM port without 
>>> installing the base GNV kit. But some of what you're looking for may be 
>>> missing.
>> 
> 
>> That is incorrect. I "installed" the base kit and a bunch of the updates.
>> 
>> What I do differently is I want a "local-to-me" kit.  I don't have 
>> privs on our cluster and I don't want to do a system-wide install. All 
>> that psx$root stuff isn't important to me.  However, PCSI kits are 
>> inherently system-wide.  Some products have some ability for multiple 
>> versions but you still need to be priv'd to install BASIC for example.  
>> So manually expand the PCSI file, look at the PCSI description file and 
>> assorted command files and attempt to recreate the kit on the side in 
>> some DISK:[JREAGAN.GNV.BIN], [JREAGAN.GNV.USR.BIN], etc. tree.  There 
>> are several SET FILE /ENTERs that need to be performed as well.
> 
> Thanks for the correction.  Sounds like PCSI needs some work, not just GNV.

This request approaches an app bundle or a container.   Maybe a way to 
install a private framework or private library and the related 
dependencies, for some applications that might want or need to share 
components.  In the traditional OpenVMS environment, this would involve 
PCSI and the (non-existent) installation and update notifications 
mechanisms, as well as sandboxes or related mechanisms intended to 
isolate these packages, and to better protect the system environment 
from the installation of rogue packages.  OpenVMS just isn't very good 
at installing things "locally", and neither PCSI nor VMSINSTAL have 
ever done that very well, if at all.



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