[CDBUG-talk] Port management

[Kevin McAleavey]

 I've been using 8 all through the cycle, and run quite a few boxes with it for development. As a result of that and the need to work with gnome gui on it, the number of ports upgrades here can be stunning in sheer volume. I guess when you run console mode, it's not as bad and thus portupgrade is sufficient.

 However, I run portmaster for the additional sanity it provides in doing literally hundreds of ports at a time. For my build machines, I install the system, configure it and then immediately bring the release version up to date with the latest on each one as it goes in. With Gnome 2.28 and all the flashy desktop-oriented things, portupgrade is constantly interrupting you as the next port's condifurations come up.

 Portmaster is quite handy for this need - it runs through all of your ports once you've collected them with "portsnap fetch update" and then brings up all of the configuration screens for your attention at the front load. Once you've configured all of the ports which desire configuration, you can let it run from there on in until a port bombs on you.

 Portmaster again proves handy in this regard because you can fix the issue or manually compile a cranky port or provide what's missing (thanks, Sun and Adobe) and pick right up from where you left off with portmaster -R or skip a cranky port for later with the -x switch naming the port to skip.

Portmaster is poorly documented because the online man page has been absent for a while, but it's second nature to me now. Check out portmaster if you have a lot of ports to go through, otherwise the other suggestions already presented are quite useful as well.

 For anyone curious as to what I'm doing, my temporary site is here:

http://knos.yolasite.com/



At 01:57 PM 1/28/2010, you wrote:
>Of all the various package and port / package management tools available such as port{upgrade,manager,master} etc., I'm curious to see how you guys keep ports and packages up to date.  Care to share your methods?

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Kevin McAleavey - kevinmca1 at verizon.net