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Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2019 14:10:31 +0000
From: Brian Peregrine <peregrinebrian@...il.com>
To: musl@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: Re: Adapting binaries easily to musl, or database with
 binaries (musl)

I've been trying to get firefox musl (from
https://distfiles.adelielinux.org/adelie/1.0-beta3/user/pmmx/ )
started (haven't gotten much further then a XPCOMGlueLoad error so
far). Regardless of this, I did notice that the firefox version is
52.9.0-r4 whereas we're currently at version 67, so not sure whether
that's recent enough for github.

I'm also thinking whether this is really the best approach or not.

One alternative could be to just download the ebuild from portage, and
then compile it for musl i686 to a usb stick (main reason for putting
the files to a usb stick is that TAZ is a livecd so you can only store
files for a limited duration -any files not stored on removable media
are erased at reboot). After saving the files to the usb stick, the
user would start the program from the usb stick (so not copying the
files manually to the system; reason is that it's easier to not copy
the files every time and the system itself is read-only, no copying to
the system is permitted)

I don't know however whether
* ebuilds from portage can be compiled under musl at all
* whether the files saved this way can actually be started from usb
stick (I doubt the files thus obtained by this method qualify as a
"binary")
* whether compiling programs using portage is leaner (less cpu/ram
intensive) then compiling the programs from (github) source (assuming
there is a difference at all). This is important as since it's a live
cd, it is already ram-intensive and we also focus on low-spec machines
(starting from i686)

Another possible way is to use anbox on gentoo and run the android
versions of the programs (which can be found easily at the app store)
directly (so not through installation with APK Tools). I don't know
however whether this would run at all under gentoo musl and it's
probably also overkill (as anbox, adb, ... need to be installed and
the android programs might also not be stable even if they do run)


On 6/8/19, Szabolcs Nagy <nsz@...t70.net> wrote:
> * Brian Peregrine <peregrinebrian@...il.com> [2019-06-08 09:33:32 +0000]:
>> I looked at https://distfiles.adelielinux.org/adelie/1.0-beta3/user/pmmx/
>> but those are apk packages. I actually want something that avoids
>> users needing to compile non-standard programs themselves and have
>> these technical (compiling) skills to begin with.
>
> you can bundle the apks into a self extracting script.
>
>>
>> I'm not familiar with apk packages; can these simply be unzipped (ie
>> with xarchiver) and can the unzipped files then run directly in gentoo
>> (same as with a binary) ? If so, then it would be suitable
>> (installation with APK Tools wouldn't be suitable as we have ). I
>
> $ file foo.apk
> foo.apk: gzip compressed data
> $ gunzip <foo.apk |file -
> /dev/stdin: POSIX tar archive
>
> it's a tar.gz with the files to install and some metadata.
>
> a packaging tool can manage dependencies, so you can
> install/uninstall/update components easily, if you do
> it with a third party script, it will be unclear what
> deps come from the system and what deps from the script
> and how to manage security updates for the latter.
> and if the abi of a system component changes after an
> update then the third party app may stop working.
>
> extracting is likely not enough, you want to put the
> binaries under a separate directory and set up paths
> for that so lib/exe/etc is found by the app.
>
>> don't care too much with these on whether it's for i586 and not i686
>> as long as it runs and people can download the file quickly and run
>> without too much fuss (the extraction step doesn't add that much time
>> compared to compiling it, ...), mainly as it's just a 2nd browser that
>> would not be used often, except in special cases.
>>
>> For TAZ, VCT Labs compiles the standard gentoo packages and makes sure
>> it runs under musl, in TAZ. So technically, there's not reason why we
>> can't do this for firefox, and simply include that program (firefox)
>> in our distro. Why haven't we done, you might ask. Reason is that we
>> already have a browser (Palemoon) and this has been made to run under
>> musl. However, for only certain websites (github for instance) it
>> doesn't work, even when using (recent firefox or chrome user agent
>> strings). I don't want to add another browser in our distro since that
>> would be (most of the time) redundant and I want TAZ users to use
>> Palemoon (as that focuses on security and simplicity more).
>>
>> We also have git-scm but that doesn't allow to do all functions github
>> has (for instance, changing the profile photo, modifying git issues,
>> ...) and I think that it's also annoying to need to use git-scm when
>> you need to change just a few lines on your repo (which in the
>> browser, would take far less time to do then with git-scm).
>

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