Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 13:36:04 +1100 (EST) From: Ian Smith <smithi@nimnet.asn.au> To: Mel <fbsd.questions@rachie.is-a-geek.net> Cc: perryh@pluto.rain.com, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, fbsd1@a1poweruser.com Subject: Re: portmanager/portmaster like application for packages? Message-ID: <20090304124451.P71460@sola.nimnet.asn.au> In-Reply-To: <20090303173238.5E43010656EE@hub.freebsd.org> References: <20090303173238.5E43010656EE@hub.freebsd.org>
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On Tue, 3 Mar 2009 08:32:10 -0900 Mel <fbsd.questions@rachie.is-a-geek.net> wrote: > On Sunday 01 March 2009 14:02:19 perryh@pluto.rain.com wrote: > > Mel <fbsd.questions@rachie.is-a-geek.net> wrote: > > > On Saturday 28 February 2009 23:06:10 Fbsd1 wrote: > > > > I am looking for software like portmanager/portmaster but works > > > > on the package system instead of the port system. Is there such > > > > am application available? > > > > > > Not (yet). Without /usr/ports it's impossible to find out what > > > software needs updating, or you'd have to download and trust the > > > INDEX-7 on the FreeBSD package servers. > > > > ... which may not be much of a stretch for those who are prepared > > to download and trust the packages themselves, from the same place. > > It is a stretch in practice. The INDEX is based on /usr/ports, which is ahead > of the packages that are actually compiled on the buildservers. Well, sometimes by a day or two, so I guess if you're portupgrading daily or whatever. For larger portupgrades after a while (as I tend :) I very rarely miss finding all the latest packages, ie as perryh said: > > portupgrade -PP manages somehow. > > Not somehow, but because it works with /usr/ports. Try renaming your ports > directory and see how that goes. Also, -PP wastes a lot of bandwidth. Just > look at the ammount of packages that are downloaded which aren't actually > installed, because the version is older or equal then installed. I don't get your latter point, Mel. Assuming the ports tree is up to date (I can't comment on using just an INDEX without a ports tree) then the package versions obtained using -PP match those in the ports tree; I don't recall it ever downloading older packages than the ports versions? > > BTW, the OP may not realize that > > "the package system" is a subset of "the port system", rather than > > an alternative. Packages are generated using the port system. > > It's an alternative way to install the same software. One can in fact use > packages without having /usr/ports present at all. I'm using my own tools, > using a custom INDEX format on the build server. But there's still too many > raw edges that I'd like the tools released into the wild. Fair enough, but I think perryh's point stands; many people appear to believe that ports and packages are separate systems. We've even seen people say "you shouldn't mix the two methods" which is utter nonsense. For a large (likely overdue :) portupgrade session, after updating the tree I start with portupgrade -anPP which fetches all available packages to /usr/ports/packages, without updating anything yet. Sometimes some regional mirrors aren't quite up to date, so I might need to finish off with a visit to somewhere closer to (ultimately) ftp.freebsd.org. Then portupgrade -aP uses the (now local) packages, builds any ports for which there is no package for licence etc reasons, sometimes grabbing a few more dependent packages along the way, but my poor lil' ol' laptop doesn't need to spend days compiling Xorg, KDE, openoffice if you use it, and a bunch of other big ports; it only takes quite a few hours :) and a little extra bandwidth saving days of building is fine by me .. The only largish port that always needs (re)building here is PHP, where the default options and thus the built package - weirdly, in my view - doesn't include mod_php, though I bet most PHP users wanted it for that. cheers, Ian
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