[squeak-dev] Nasty side effect

Tobias Pape Das.Linux at gmx.de
Thu Feb 23 09:08:11 UTC 2017


Hi all

here's a nasty side effect of our way of ensuring that the heartbeat-thread thing works.
	https://github.com/dalehenrich/metacello-work/issues/427#issuecomment-281919088

TL;DR:
	(1) Run squeak w/ superuser/root rights creates the 'package-cache' directory as root
	(2) Installing something with monticello then _SILENTLY_ fails

Both is bad.
So, (1) is hard to fix. I would have said, hey, if we are root, just _don't_ run squeak but just create the heartbeat files.
But that makes no sense when we actually want to run squeak as root.

SUGGESTION:
	- Do not ship heartbeat vm in the all in one[1]
	- Ship the heartbeat vm only in system packages[2]
	- Fix handling File-open failures.

I'm onto (2), and frankly, I was surprised to learn that:

	squeak-dir$ mkdir foo
	squeak-dir$ chmod -w foo

and then
	(FileDirectory default / 'foo') newFileNamed: 'bar'. "==> nil"

this Must Not happen.

To many to-dos in one mail, I know :(

Best regards
	-Tobias


[1]: Yes, I know, performance is bad then, but the user experience is badder [sic]. That is a hard-to-cope-with tradeoff.
[2]: Wich means, that we eventually, finally, have to package debs and rpms, I'd say.


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