On the other hand, the OpenBSD-people advise using packages instead of ports. See http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq8.html#PortsvsPkgs
I guess it's just a matter of personal taste and needs. GH On Sat, Jun 19, 2004 at 05:11:22PM +0300, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: > On 2004-06-19 10:58, Patrick Useldinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Giorgos Keramidas wrote: > > > > > Before I answer to this question, I cannot help noting that you don't > > > *HAVE* to compile everything from source. In fact, if you install a > > > RELEASE version of FreeBSD and use pkg_add to install the binary, > > > precompiled packages of just the applications you are going to > > > use... there is absolutely no need to rebuild anything from source. > > > > True for the CDs. But once you want to upgrade, things get more > > complicated. For example, I did not find a package for OpenOffice 1.1.1 > > in the "offical" places, although OO is certainly an excellent candidate > > for a package. > > Indeed, packages-4-stable, packages-4.10-release on ftp.freebsd.org > don't include openoffice. A search at google though yields: > > http://projects.imp.ch/openoffice/ > > which does list FreeBSD packages of OO-1.0.3 and OO-1.1.0 :-) > > > This led me to the conclusion that packages, in the FBSD world, are > > considered less important than the very well maintained ports. > > The ports people are going through a lot of effort to build, test and > package the maximum possible number of ports before each release. > > > I would prefer it to be the other way round: go for packages, unless you > > want to tweak anything. > > This is preferable from the end-user's perspective, but I think it would > exponentially increase the number of precompiled binaries the mirrors > would have to keep available. If a port has 3 options and depends on > another with 4 options, to host every possible combination that one > might want on the FTP site 12 different combinations would have to be > built and packaged! With thousands of ports in the tree this means a > mind-boggingly huge number of different builds and packages can be built. > > Is it possible to satisfy all the users with precompiled packages? No. > > So, going for ports and using packages only is a bit difficult :-/ > > > I do not agree with an earlier argument, which was that you could change > > the source. I have been programming for 25 years now, I am certain that > > you don't change code, not even in a reasonably sized project, without > > spending a large amount of time. > > I have a local patch to fetchmail in my local /usr/ports tree that fixes > a bug recent versions have with APOP: > > : [EMAIL PROTECTED]:05]/usr/ports/mail/fetchmail# cvs -q up -APd > : ? files/patch-zz::apop_bug > : [EMAIL PROTECTED]:05]/usr/ports/mail/fetchmail# > : > : [EMAIL PROTECTED]:06]/usr/ports/mail/fetchmail# cat files/patch-zz\:\:apop_bug > : --- driver.c.orig Sun Mar 28 13:29:15 2004 > : +++ driver.c Sun Mar 28 13:49:42 2004 > : @@ -429,7 +429,7 @@ > : /* for POP3, we can get the size of one mail only! Unfortunately, this > : * protocol specific test cannot be done elsewhere as the protocol > : * could be "auto". */ > : - if (ctl->server.protocol == P_POP3) > : + if (ctl->server.protocol == P_POP3 || ctl->server.protocol == P_APOP || > ctl->server.protocol == P_RPOP) > : fetchsizelimit = 1; > : > : /* Time to allocate memory to store the sizes */ > > This is a serious showstopper for anyone who uses fetchmail and doesn't > want to fetch all the messages in one connection (for whatever reasons). > > It didn't take me more than 15 minutes to write, but then I'm working as > a programmer so that's "normal". Fetchmail is, IMHO, a reasonably sized > project. I'm not saying this to sound insulting to you in any way, or > to boast about my ''l33t h4x0r skillz'' -- that's nonsense. I am only > bringing it up as a good example where building the port *does* have > obvious advantages. > > - Giorgos > > _______________________________________________ > [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" _______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
