Date: Sat, 13 May 2006 11:09:20 -0800 From: Beech Rintoul <beech@alaskaparadise.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, fbsd@a1poweruser.com Subject: Re: Has the port collection become to large to handle. Message-ID: <200605131109.33299.beech@alaskaparadise.com> In-Reply-To: <MIEPLLIBMLEEABPDBIEGIEPBHGAA.fbsd@a1poweruser.com> References: <MIEPLLIBMLEEABPDBIEGIEPBHGAA.fbsd@a1poweruser.com>
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--nextPart6485572.m09J1pgMWo Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline =46irst of all, please don't cross post. On Saturday 13 May 2006 10:28, fbsd wrote: > To all question list readers; > > Now with 14576 ports in the collection where do you > draw the line that its too large to be downloading > the whole collection when you just use 10 or 20 of them? > The port collection is growing at a ever increasing rate per month. > The mass majority of the ports are so special purpose that only a > very few people have need of them. Sure there are ways to limit > the categories you select to download, but still the size of > the most used categories is too large and loaded with ports not > commonly used by the general user. > > So people them use the packages. But the problem with the > packages is they are not updated every time changes are > made to the port they were created from. Also packages that > have dependants like php4/php5 or mysql4/mysql5 are not being > updated to use the newer versions of those dependants as they come > out. > > I for one think the port/package collection has already grown to > large to handle in it's present state. > Users are consuming massive bandwidth to download and it > consumes a very large chunk of disk space. Saying nothing about > the wasted resources consumed to back it up repeatedly. > > I have gone to using the package version for everything and > only downloading the ports config files for packages that > I need to compile from scratch to change some add on function. > This methodology has worked fine since FreeBSD version 3.0 as > I used each new release of FreeBSD up to 6.1. > > Now in 6.1 there is problems with packages that have not been > recreated using the new system make file. > This problem is caused by there being no mandatory requirement on > the ports maintainers to recreate the packages any time one of the > dependants change or when changes are made to the canned make > process > or when dependants show up as broken. Yes I know what a large task > this is and that it requires a lot of run time to accomplish. > > So my question is how do we users make our needs known > to the ports maintainer group so that will seriously address > the problem of the packages being outdated? > > Are there other people on this list who are dissatisfied with the > packages and the problems associated with using packages and ports > mixed together? > > What are your thoughts about requesting the ports group to create > a new category containing just the ports most commonly used > including > their dependents and making this general category the default > used to download. This would be a much smaller sized download > containing everything necessary to build the most used ports. > Many of the dependents are used over and over by many > different port applications. This will never work. I doubt if you could find agreement between two users= as=20 to what to include. We really don't need to go down the micro$oft "we decid= e=20 what you need" approach to our ports. The binary update question has been=20 discussed at length in these forums.=20 There is nothing to stop you from making a local ports tree to better suit= =20 your situation. But don't complain if you find conflicts with the port tool= s=20 and/or ports. The ports that are considered universal are already included= =20 and maintained as part of the base system. As was stated in earlier replies, you need the complete ports tree otherwis= e=20 you are on your own. As a port maintainer, it's quite enough work to keep things in sync with on= e=20 ports tree without having to also worry about a second "convenience" tree=20 that will only benefit a few users. The lack of willingness on your part to= =20 download the complete tree does not constitute a problem on our end. Beech > > This new category would them be given priority in keeping > their packages up to date. Could even take this idea one step > further > and say that only ports in this category will have packages > built and keep up to date. All ports not in this special > category will not have packages built at all. I think this > would help the port group to better manager their people resources > and serve the needs of the user community better. > > Another idea I would like to throw out to the list is how about > requesting the ports group to add a function to packages so the > installer of the package can select what version of the dependent > components should be included in the install. > Much like "make config" does in the ports system? > The packages system already automatically launches the download > of dependent packages so why not give the installer the option to > select which version of the dependent to fetch. > Like in php4/5 or mysql4/5 or apache 13/20. This way the package > is more flexible and the port maintainer does not have to build > a different version of the parent package for each version of > the dependant which is available. > > The whole idea behind this post is to give the general users who > reads this questions list an opportunity to brainstorm about ways to > make the ports/package collection better and easier to use. > This may help the ports group in understanding the needs and > direction we the users would like to see the management of > the collection to take. > If we don't speak up they will just think things are ok as they are > now. > FreeBSD is a public project. The ports group are not the only > users who can give input about the direction and policies > concerning the future of the ports/package collection. > > > All feedback welcome. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to > "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" =2D-=20 =2D------------------------------------------------------------------------= =2D------------- Beech Rintoul - Sys. Administrator - beech@alaskaparadise.com /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | Alaska Paradise \ / - NO HTML/RTF in e-mail | 201 East 9Th Avenue Ste.310 X - NO Word docs in e-mail | Anchorage, AK 99501 / \ - Please visit Alaska Paradise - http://www.alaskaparadise.com =2D------------------------------------------------------------------------= =2D------------- --nextPart6485572.m09J1pgMWo Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQBEZi7tp5D0B1NlT4URAr8GAJ4xHJkih1XBaYMSKjLrK2nS53ftVwCbB2vR nNi2o7xQL515rYGGNRmKtAs= =Dh22 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --nextPart6485572.m09J1pgMWo--
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