Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 13:05:41 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eric J. Schwertfeger" <ejs@bfd.com> To: Kristoph Yates <kyates@wspice.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why does PORTS SUCK so BADLY!? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.10.10004251237040.84943-100000@harlie.bfd.com> In-Reply-To: <3905F045.9060804@wspice.com>
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On Tue, 25 Apr 2000, Kristoph Yates wrote: > That is my question.=A0 It seems the idea behind ports is trapped in the= =20 > 70's. And what would you suggest would be better? RPM's? No thanks, that's one of the reasons I don't use Linux anymore. >=A0They hardly work and many times get errors about "file not found"=20 > or something equally annoying.. so I have to go in and screw with it "by= =20 > hand" which is no problem for me.. but the newbies are another story. "file not found" or something to the effect that the distfile(s) couldn't be fetched? The only time I've seen problems like this is when 1) I didn't follow the instructions (often discussed on the list that you don't subscribe to) about updating the ports collection without updating the OS. 2) The software author moved the primary repository, and for whatever reason, (author didn't permit it being the main one) there isn't a copy of the distfile in the central repository. Not much can be done about 1, and the only way around 2 is having self-updating ports, and that would be more of a nightmare than I'd like to think about. > Once I ran make lynx and it said I had to have X11 installed.=A0 What a= =20 > crock..=20 Odd, I've made several versions of lynx on several machines, and not once had that happen. Are you sure that you installed lynx and not lyx, which would require X11? What version of the OS, what date of the ports collection were you using? > another fine example is openssl ...=A0 It wants the useless RSAREF=20 > crap.=A0 What a crock! It may be crap, but it is legally required if you're within US patent jurisdiction, and it isn't required if you're not and you've properly set up your system to know you're not. > Any info would be appreciated.=A0 Please respond via email as I am not=20 > subscribed to the list. A rather telling remark, actually. I realize not everyone has time to keep up with questions, but the digest is easy to keep up with. The RSA issue has been discussed here, is probably documented on the website, etc. The proper way to update the ports collection has been discussed as well, if that is the problem with the "file not found" messages. I've worked with several packaging mechanisms, but I prefer the ports collection to packages, and SRPM's are the closest comparison to the ports collection that I've used (I'm sure the Denebian distribution has something comparable to SRPM's but I've never installed Denebian to find out), and it doesn't compare well. The ports collection allows what would be a small tarball of files to compile (in most cases sucessfully, I installed 183 ports on my home=20 machine when I upgraded to 3.4R, and didn't have to hand-tweek any of them) across at least two architectures, several OS branches, etc. If a new patch is required, we don't have to redistribute the original source, as the SRPMs do, we just fetch the new port, or even just the new patch. If the program the port is based on has been updated, someone familiar with the ports collection can usually update the port themselves for=20 their own use before the port maintainer gets around to it,=20 Is the ports collection the best that it could be? No, but a handful of complaints without any means of reproducing the problems (except for the RSA issue, which is a matter of reading the docs) isn't going to help. If you've got any suggestions for a better system or incremental improvements, I'm sure there are people that would like to hear it. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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