Dag-Erling_Smørgrav <des_at_FreeBSD.org> wrote on
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2025 17:12:08 UTC :

> [email protected] writes:
> > what is the correct way to depkgbasify?
> 
> There is no “correct” way. Here's what I would suggest:
> 
> 1. Make sure your system is up-to-date and consistent and you have a
> matching source tree installed:
> 
> # pkg upgrade -y
> # pkg install -y FreeBSD-set-src
> # pkg autoremove -y
> 
> 2. Make a list of non-pkgbase non-automatic packages:
> 
> # pkg query -e '%a == 0 && %o !~ base/*' %n >packages
> 
> 3. Delete your installed package database:
> 
> # rm /var/db/pkg/local.sqlite
> 
> 4. Reinstall non-pkgbase packages:
> 
> # pkg install -fy $(cat packages)
> 
> This will of course also reinstall all dependencies, but we are
> deliberately only specifying non-automatic packages so the end result
> is the same as what we started out with. If we had made a list of
> _all_ installed packages, we would end up with everything now being
> marked non-automatic, and `pkg autoremove` would no longer work
> properly.
> 
> 5. Populate /var/db/etcupdate so it will work when you later upgrade
> from source:
> 
> # etcupdate extract
> 
> 6. Optional but recommended — disable the pkgbase repository:
> 
> # rm /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf
> 
> (this file will have been created by the installer and should contain
> a single line that enables the FreeBSD-base repository; without it,
> the repository remains defined in /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf but disabled)
> 
> You can also remove cached information about the repository, which
> you will no longer need:
> 
> # rm -rf /var/db/pkg/repos/FreeBSD-base
> 
> At this point you can replace /usr/src with a git clone and upgrade as
> usual (`make -C /usr/src -j1.5 world kernel && etcupdate -B`).
> 
> There is a shortcut for steps 2-4. I think it is both sufficient and
> safe, but I don't know pkg's internals well enough to say for sure;
> perhaps bapt@ can weight in. First you need to install the sqlite3 cli:
> 
> # pkg install -Ay sqlite3
> 
> You can then use it to remove information about base packages from the
> package database, leaving the rest intact so you don't have to reinstall
> them:
> 
> # sqlite3 /var/db/pkg/local.sqlite \
> "delete from packages where origin like 'base/%';"
> 
> If you choose this route you can also drop the autoremove in step 1,
> which I only put in to shorten steps 2 and 4. You still have to perform
> step 5 (and optionally 6).


At some point after one is no longer dependent
on FreeBSD-*.pkg files from pkgbase, one may
want to recover the disk space from any:

/var/cache/pkg/FreeBSD-*.pkg

files.

# ls -l /var/cache/pkg/FreeBSD-*.pkg
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root wheel        49 Nov 15 15:48 
/var/cache/pkg/FreeBSD-acct-16.snap20251112131218.pkg -> 
FreeBSD-acct-16.snap20251112131218~d117264470.pkg
-rw-r--r--  1 root wheel     48106 Nov 12 15:39 
/var/cache/pkg/FreeBSD-acct-16.snap20251112131218~d117264470.pkg
. . .

(My file ownerships need not match yours.)

# ls -1 /var/cache/pkg/FreeBSD-*.pkg | wc -l
    1032

(Not that you would get that specific figure. I
tend to have all the FreeBSD-*.pkg for the
platform installed.)

I'm not sure of what well fits with the above
steps 1..6 for this. Possibly just as a step 7:

# rm -f /var/cache/pkg/FreeBSD-*.pkg

?


===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com


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