Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 05:52:28 -0500 (CDT) From: Scott Bennett <bennett@cs.niu.edu> To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: getting bogged down by malfunctioning ports subsystem Message-ID: <200908051052.n75AqSAI005906@mp.cs.niu.edu>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Yesterday's ports updates are just *loads* of fun. :-( Until portmaster
reached the rebuilding of perl5.10, *every* *single* *port* that got rebuilt
ended in failure on a "make deinstall/make reinstall" recommendation, *none*
of which actually worked when tried. The only thing that worked was to ignore
that part of the recommendation and instead to do a
"env FORCE_PKG_REGISTER make install". I didn't isolate that until after
several rebuilt ports (mostly qt4- ports) were lost due to the failures of
the recommended solution.
perl5.10, however, now fails to update on something different. It gets
an error that says,
.
.
.
===>>> Starting check for runtime dependencies
===>>> Gathering dependency list for lang/perl5.10 from ports
===>>> Starting dependency check
===>>> Checking dependency: /usr/ports/databases/gdbm
===>>> Dependency check complete for lang/perl5.10
/usr/bin/make install.perl install.man STRIPFLAGS= DESTDIR=""
/usr/bin/strip: '/usr/local/bin/perl5.10.0': No such file
/usr/bin/strip: '/usr/local/bin/perl': No such file
/usr/local/bin/pod2man: not found
*** Error code 127
It then proceeds to rebuild the port and install much of it before failing
with
1 error
I love most of the rest of FreeBSD, but I have to ask, are the allegedly
more ad hoc methods of dealing with ported software that are used in LINUX
*really* any worse to live with than this? The FreeBSD ports subsystem has
been a never-ending nightmare at least since 5.2.1 when I first started using
FreeBSD. Lately, in trying to following the suggestions of asking for help
on the list that one finds in the FreeBSD documentation, I can't even keep
up with the replies, about a quarter of which are genuinely helpful (thanks
much for those!) and trying to keep an updated system is proving to be just
about impossible.
Recently, a request for even token donations was posted to the
freebsd-announce list in order to get a more representative count of the
number of people using FreeBSD. I will try to send a token donation, but
unfortunately, I live in poverty, not fabulous wealth, so I have no ability
to fund a project to fix the ports subsystem. Is there any hope that the
FreeBSD Foundation might have success in soliciting funding elsewhere to fix
the ports subsystem? It has been by far the weakest, most fragile and
unreliable part of FreeBSD for way too long.
For the moment, I'm afraid I must give up trying to update ports. The
process is just too broken. The libtool upgrade I asked about on the list
earlier? If the daily patches are beyond my reach, there's really no point
in worrying about libtool. It looks now as though my best option will be
to wait for the next release of FreeBSD, install that, and forget about any
ports updates until the release after that, and so on. :-( I just hope that
my system is not now too broken to use until the next release comes out.
Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
**********************************************************************
* Internet: bennett at cs.niu.edu *
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
* "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good *
* objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments *
* -- a standing army." *
* -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790 *
**********************************************************************
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200908051052.n75AqSAI005906>