I've been asked to come up with at least an interim approach -- that can be implemented within a few days -- to allow the SAs at my new job to install conflicting ports on the same machine.
I can think of some approaches, but I'd prefer to use one that doesn't suck too much, and that doesn't impede the transition to something better. I would also like to continue to be able to make use of the FreeBSD "ports" system, and be able to take advantage of the ports collection, such as dependency-tracking. Their (the SAs) stated preferred approach is to use GNU stow (sysutils/stow), though I've not used it previously, and I'm not quite clear on just how that would work in practice -- and still provide the benefits of the FreeBSD "ports" system as mentioned above. (They use it for the Linux machines; not sure about the Solaris machines.) The catalyst for the exercise is that we have some pools of machines for developers to use; some of the developers wish to use editors/xemacs; some wish to use editors/emacs -- on the same machine. (Given the requirement, it's OK for the affected folks to need to adjust search, library, and man paths.) (I haven't been in the new position long enough to know why folks can't just each use their own desktop/workstations, configured however each one sees fit. Even so, I suppose that there might be a developer out there who might want conflicting ports on his dektop -- I've had that request before ... or rather, a request that implied that: One of the developers at a previous place of employment was distressed when he determined that he was unable to install every port in the ports collection on his desktop machine. In that case, his local disk storage gave out before he ran into the "conflicts" issue, but I'm sure that would have come up eventually.) (I've subscribed to -ports@, at least for now, so there's no need to copy me on messages sent to the list.) Anyway, thanks in advance for suggestions -- even pointing out why a certain approach would be inadvisable would be helpful. Peace, david -- David H. Wolfskill [EMAIL PROTECTED] I submit that "conspiracy" would be an appropriate collective noun for cats. See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key.
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