Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:09:12 +0000 From: Mike Clarke <jmc-freebsd@milibyte.co.uk> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Installation Message-ID: <200803121009.12536.jmc-freebsd@milibyte.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <20080312091427.GA47661@torus.slightlystrange.org> References: <op.t7v4onzfeuvaz5@athlon2000> <20080312091427.GA47661@torus.slightlystrange.org>
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On Wednesday 12 March 2008, Daniel Bye wrote: > I think it fair to say that most people will use ports to compile and > install software, rather than relying on the packages on the release > ISOs, for the simple reason that the ports tree is a moving target - > the packages included with any particular release are out of date > (as a set, if not individually) quite quickly, because the porters > do a fantastic job of adding new software and updating existing ports. > > So, my suggestion (as an old hack who's been around for almost a > decade ;-) would be to familiarise yourself with the ports tree > and all its magic - you'll probably find yourself using it in > preference to precompiled packages. The handbook is the best place > to start, as ever. I agree that there are advantages in using ports to ensure things are kept up to date but using the packages supplied with the release can be an advantage for a newcomer to FreeBSD. The ports system can be quite daunting until one has become familiar with the system especially if even just one of the ports fails to build. A new user probably won't have the expertise to recognise and fix the cause of the problem. Installing packages from the CD's pretty well ensures that the new user can get a new system up and running without complication. Many new users would prefer a slightly out of date system that works instead of struggling to fix problems in a totally unfamiliar system. When I first started to use FreeBSD I relied on the packages on the CDs, as I gained more familiarity I was much more confident in using ports for the applications that weren't available as precompiled packages. Although I'm now quite comfortable building from ports I still use precompiled packages where they are available because I've got a relatively low powered PC which makes very heavy going with the bigger ports (e.g. gcc, firefox, KDE) -- Mike Clarke
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