From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 4 16:50:26 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E50771065670 for ; Wed, 4 May 2011 16:50:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from xaero@xaerolimit.net) Received: from mail-bw0-f54.google.com (mail-bw0-f54.google.com [209.85.214.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7CF288FC13 for ; Wed, 4 May 2011 16:50:26 +0000 (UTC) Received: by bwz12 with SMTP id 12so1634304bwz.13 for ; Wed, 04 May 2011 09:50:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.204.32.65 with SMTP id b1mr1283529bkd.73.1304527825174; Wed, 04 May 2011 09:50:25 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.204.46.28 with HTTP; Wed, 4 May 2011 09:50:05 -0700 (PDT) From: Chris Brennan Date: Wed, 4 May 2011 12:50:05 -0400 Message-ID: To: FreeBSD Questions Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Subject: A possibly odd upgrade question X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 04 May 2011 16:50:27 -0000 I have an old PIII running FreeBSD7.3 currently, ports is all kinds of screwed up, when I did my first cross-version upgrade from 6.x to 7.x, I didn't know I had to rebuild ports, I subsequently upgrades though every version upto to 7.3. Ports is still FUBAR, half of them no longer work. So my question is this, now I know for the future to upgrade ports after every upgrade, is it safe to nuke /usr/local (excluding /usr/local/home), rebuild world/kernel for 8.2 and start with a fresh ports tree? I thought about a clean reinstall but this machine cannot boot from USB, both CD-ROM's are dead and have been disconnected to use IDE hard-drives and the floppy driver is dead as well. So it would seem an inline/online rebuild is my only upgrade solution but with ports in it's current state of FUBAR, it leaves me with the question of what to do with that too. P.S. I've tried a portmaster/portsupgrade of ports, both met with disastrous results and with 193 current ports installed, over 75% of which is broke and isn't used any more ... I need to start over -- > A: Yes. > >Q: Are you sure? > >>A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation. > >>>Q: Why is top posting frowned upon?