Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 08:59:31 -0700 (PDT) From: Andrew Gould <andrewgould@yahoo.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ports vs standard sources Message-ID: <20010410155931.26165.qmail@web13401.mail.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0104101043290.3895-100000@iib005.iib.unsam.edu.ar>
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Hello, As a fellow FreeBSD newbie, I would suggest the following: 1) Stay current using cvsupit. 2) Use the ports where possible. 3) If the ports are too old for you, see if a newer version of the application has been added to the packages collection. Two BIG advantages for newbies to use ports and packages over standard source/binaries: 1) The applications will be configured properly for FreeBSD. In the case of some packages, even some of the post installation configuration steps are performed for you. Speaking as someone who doesn't have an intuitive feel for the file system (yet), this has been a big help. 2) If you're missing dependencies, the ports installation process will try to find and install them! Someone with more experience than I will have to help you with customizing ports. I hope this helps, Andrew Gould --- Fernan Aguero <fernan@iib.unsam.edu.ar> wrote: > Hi all! > > I am new to FreeBSD and just starting to get the > grasp of the 'ports' > concept. I have already installed a few and found > that is really a great > thing to have. However I also noticed that many of > them are outdated and > also read a few posts suggesting to grab standard > sources and compile > without using the ports. From my limited knowledge - > and reading the > Handbook did not help me clarify this - this is how > i see things. > > i) first of all I thought that ports were necessary > because things would > not compile straight otherwise. > ii) however several mentions to compile things > without using ports have > made me think that this is not true in all cases. > > Then my question is: how do autoconf based > compilation work in FreeBSD? - > I mean sources that use GNU autoconf to generate a > configure script (that > in turn generates a Makefile)? > > If autoconf-configure work OK, then the idea of > ports is just to help > download-patch-compile in an automated way? > > Another question: I noticed that some ports did run > a configure script > before compiling, however, I could not pass any > custom option to > configure, since it was all part of the port 'make' > procedure. How can I > manually add options before compiling? > (Example: suppose I want to compile php as an apache > module. I would run > configure on php sources like this: ./configure > --with-apache=../apache_1.3.x). How would you this > with ports? > > Thanks in advance, > > Fernan > > -- > > > Fernan Aguero > Bioinformatics > IIB-UNSAM > fernan@iib.unsam.edu.ar > ICQ 100325972 > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of > the message __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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