Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 11:00:45 -0400 From: Louis LeBlanc <leblanc+freebsd@acadia.ne.mediaone.net> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Patches Question Message-ID: <20010725110045.D13342@acadia.ne.mediaone.net> In-Reply-To: <20010725132027.46048.qmail@web12808.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20010725085538.B13342@acadia.ne.mediaone.net> <20010725132027.46048.qmail@web12808.mail.yahoo.com>
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On 07/25/01 06:20 AM, Hans Zaunere sat at the `puter and typed: > > Well specifically I am referring to the ports > collection. Whenever I do a make install for a port, > there is always a section saying something along the > lines of "Getting FreeBSD Patches." > > I am wondering what these consist of, since I seldom > see neseccary patches for other systems, except for > those that the vendor/developer specifically says > should be installed. When I make install a port and > it does its magic, where do these patches come from? > Vendor? FreeBSD project? Third-party? These patches do Actually, if you look in the Makefile for the port, you will probably see that the patches may come from all of the above. At least in some cases. I think these patches sometimes are FreeBSD specific, but like I said, this is usually a portability issue. The original developer may have developed it on Linux or Solaris and may have used library calls that are slightly different on FreeBSD. This is a large part of what makes different OSs different. Of course in some cases, the port maintainer is not the application maintainer, and will therefore take on a kind of 'value-add' role. Basically adding value to the app by making it more widely available. Rarely in such cases are these patches actually bug fixes, but purely portability patches. They don't change the behavior or the stability (ideally, anyway), but they do provide the code with preprocessor directives suitable to tell the compiler 'if Im on freebsd, compile this instead of this'. In such cases, the Makefile is sometimes modified as well. > seem to be FreeBSD specific, and I am wondering what > kinds of technical issues they are patching. Memory? > Networking? Differences between FreeBSD's architecture > and a SysV based system? etc.. Keep in mind that these messages may just be defaulted from the port interface. FreeBSD patches may just mean 'patches deemed suitable for this app on FreeBSD' rather than 'patches written specifically for this app on FreeBSD'. Often the portability patches (written specifically so this app will build on FreeBSD and possibly other OSs) do handle differences between SysV and BSD based systems. (tho I thought that the BSDs _were_ SysV compliant?). I don't think you will often see patches based solely on memory handling, though networking may fall under portability issues from time to time. HTH Lou -- Louis LeBlanc leblanc@acadia.ne.mediaone.net Fully Funded Hobbyist, KeySlapper Extrordinaire :) http://acadia.ne.mediaone.net ԿԬ Stult's Report: Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is fight the solutions. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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