very short overview of FreeBSD packages (fwd)

[Scott Robbins]

On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 09:03:47PM -0500, David Billsbrough wrote:
> In a short response to an email I wrote:
>  
> > I am attempting to explain ports/packaging in FreeBSD
> >  https://www.dropbox.com/s/q07d2ah7zlyv8d0/ports_and_packages.txt
> > Did I mangle it too bad?

The question is, what do they mean?  Do they mean the fact that it can
literally take hours to install what may take a few moments in Linux?  Do
they mean that they may have installed a package, then installed a port to
find that it insisted on redoing everything the package did?  

For example, if they install 10 tonight, then go to add xorg-server with
pkg install, they'll find that (at least as of 18:00 EST tonight) that pkg
will come back with can't find xorg-server.  As X is a pretty major thing
for those who aren't running servers, someone giving it a try after some
time away will say, Sheesh, they *still* can't get packaging right.

Not to mention if they do install it from packages, without adding
WITH_NEW_XORG=yes to /etc/make.conf, they'll get a rather old version of X. 

So rather than take a, What are you talking about, approach, I think that I
(but let's face it, I'm a wimp) would first ask what they meant exactly,
then admit that no, it's still far from perfect--as another example, if you
install openbox with pkg install before xorg-server, because, for example,
yhou forgot that you didn't install xorg-server, then go to install
xorg-server, which, as mentioned, you'll find isn't available, then go to
install it from ports, it will fail, due to some changes in dri and libGL
that are mentioned in UPDATING.  

So, I think I would certainly concede it's far from perfect.
For someone who is used to a (usually) working apt-get or yum, it still
requires some knowledge to mix ports and packages--on the FreeBSD forums,
it's usually advised to not do so unless you have some idea of what you're
doing.  

So, I think I would first find out what the person meant by packaging
woes--especially in writing, the What are you talking about line can easily
be misinterpreted as, You don't know what you're talking about.  Then, it's
easier to answer their concerns, and probably worth, IMHO, but as I said,
I'm a wimp, that it is certainly not perfect.  


(Unless of course, you want to argue with the person--not being familiar
with that particular list, it's always possible that that's the aim.)  :)



-- 
Scott Robbins
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