From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Jan 22 15:11:23 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from aragorn.neomedia.it (aragorn.neomedia.it [195.103.207.6]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1161C157AA for ; Sat, 22 Jan 2000 15:10:35 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from bartequi@nojunk.com) Received: from bartequi.ottodomain.org (ppp26-pa4.neomedia.it [195.103.207.218]) by aragorn.neomedia.it (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id AAA14108; Sun, 23 Jan 2000 00:08:57 +0100 (CET) From: Salvo Bartolotta Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2000 23:10:49 GMT Message-ID: <20000122.23104900@bartequi.ottodomain.org> Subject: Re: metaports ... To: Walter Brameld , jcm@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG References: <20000122.170600@bartequi.ottodomain.org> <3888FA8E.FD65AA02@twave.net> <20000122.8115700@bartequi.ottodomain.org> <3889C346.37971709@twave.net> X-Mailer: Supercalifragilis X-Priority: 3 (Normal) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > Dear Mr. Bartolotta, > I commend you on giving a very comprehensive explanation of > the word "meta". However, Jonathon's original question was > "What is a meta-PORT?" and I also lacked this bit of > knowledge, so I was interested in the reply. The other > respondent provided the information that a meta-port is one > that will install other ports that are required for it to > function. Using rules of theory, or perhaps even Occam's > razor I felt that was the more definitive explanation. If > failing to glean this information from your response was due > to a lack of intelligence on my part, please do not take > umbrage. I do have many short-comings. > Yours sincerely, > Walter Brameld Dear Mr Brameld, thank you very much for clarifying. Yesterday, Mr Darren Wiebe gave an almost complete answer to your question in a letter of his ("Re: metaports"). He only left a little particular understood: a metaport does not install anything "per se"; it only manages sub-ports, or, if you prefer, dependencies. It simply acts as a sort of supervisor with respect to the related subports. Let us listen to what e.g. Mr KDE-1.1.2 metaport has to tell us: =3D=3D KDE provides an integrated X11 based environment, much like CDE. =3D=3D This package does not contain anything by itself -- it is a =3D=3D "meta-port" that depends on other KDE packages. Its sole purpose = is =3D=3D to require dependencies so users can install this package only an= d =3D=3D have all the KDE stuff pulled in by the port/package dependency =3D=3D mechanism. (Cf /usr/ports/x11/kde11/pkg/DESCR) If you look at its PLIST, you will find that it is intentionally left empty; moreover, it will remain such after you have "installed" the metaport. By the way, I have KDE-1.1.2 up and running. If you should "install" such a metaport, you would also notice that the .PLIST.mktmp, which is found in the related .../work directory, was left empty. Further, and more significantly, my KDE-1.1.2 metaport .../work directory contains no *.h or *.c files, no other source-related files at large, and no subdirectories; only .PLIST.mktmp and the *.done files are present. The same applies to my Gnome metaport. In the handbook, a few details on this subject are dealt with at some lenght. However, the definitive "splitting hairs" exact response to your question is provided by the metaport Makefiles and, especially,=20 by bsd.port.mk. The latter, which is found in /usr/ports/Mk, expounds the ports mechanisms exhaustively. I hope that this information will be of help. Please note: my_fake_antispam_domain =3D=3D=3D> neomedia.it to e-mail to= me. Yours sincerely Salvo Bartolotta To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message