Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 08:30:39 -0500 From: "Jack L. Stone" <jackstone@sage-one.net> To: Jason Hunt <leth@primus.ca> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: housecleaning and portupgrade question Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20021025083039.01b1e400@mail.sage-one.net> In-Reply-To: <20021024231510.O22947-100000@lethargic.dyndns.org> References: <1035474504.15382.20.camel@lorax.forestry.umn.edu>
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At 11:42 PM 10.24.2002 -0400, you wrote: >On 24 Oct 2002, Kirk R. Wythers wrote: > >> It looks to me like there is no reason for both aalib-1.4.r5 and >> aalib-1.4.r5_1. Seems that portupgrade does not cause this problem and >> is the prefered upgrade method >> >> There are numerous examples of this issue. My question is: what is the >> recommended way to delete an old version application x. This assumes of >> course that you are sure that it is not depended upon by some other app. >> > >Well you don't want to just 'pkg_delete -f' the older versions, since >there will probably be a lot of files that got updated by the new version, >which would cause a big mess. > >Personally I have always just installed the newer version of a port on-top >of the older one. Then I go through the package "database" and fix the >dependencies (I actually have a small script to do this for me). The >package "database" is stored in the /var/db/pkg directory. Each port >has it's own subdirectory, each of which contains a few files to describe >the package, it's dependencies, files, etc. After fixing the >dependencies I just remove the directory for the old package and it's >"uninstalled". I don't know if this is the best way to go about >maintaining packages, and I realize that lots of unused/old files are >being left around, but FWIW I have not run into any problems. Maybe >someone has better advice? > >Also, I never really liked the idea of using portupgrade because it >maintains a separate database and a completely different set of commands. >I'm not saying portupgrade is bad since I really can't judge it, but (I >know I sound like a prick here, but ...) if it's so good then why isn't it >incorporated into the base system? I'm certainly open to new ideas, etc, >but portupgrade seems like more of a bandaid to the original pkg database >then fixing the "problem" (of upgrading ports and maintaining the >database). > >Comments? Let me know if I'm way out of line. :) > Well, you invited opinions. For a long time, I too stubbornly refused to try portupgrade, but once I did install it and use it, I found it to be a really slick set of tools and glad now that I use it. Just because something is not in the base system is not a valid reason for not using a good utility. There are lots of those that aren't in the base system. One really has nothing to do with the other, but if it helps someone to rationalize not trying something, it's as good as any other reason I guess. My reason was simply that I hadn't tried it and was not familiar with its fine abilities. Describing it as a bandaid indicates that one hasn't really tried it and speaks without any experience with the utility. It nicely cleaned up my messes left behind from installs over installs. I don't have the luxuary of the time to write a script or look for those many dependancies. The script has already been written in portupgrade and its tools. But, I understand reluctance to try something new -- that was me and my decision. Best regards, Jack L. Stone, Administrator SageOne Net http://www.sage-one.net jackstone@sage-one.net To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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