From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Apr 9 07:16:23 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 05B8C106567F for ; Thu, 9 Apr 2009 07:16:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from j.mckeown@ru.ac.za) Received: from d.mail.ru.ac.za (d.mail.ru.ac.za [IPv6:2001:4200:1010::25:4]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 383A58FC22 for ; Thu, 9 Apr 2009 07:16:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from j.mckeown@ru.ac.za) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=ru-msa; d=ru.ac.za; h=Received:From:Organization:To:Subject:Date:User-Agent:Cc:References:In-Reply-To:X-Face:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Content-Disposition:Message-Id:X-Virus-Scanned:X-Authenticated-User; b=d1kI/Ib9Mh/qc5CW5qAZHFT/c0sX+ch6/YMmdWYfzVfD7cQJRdsvV6MV2+gRrcsHegKPbcWAUviASC3y8ayWQZYSOuMnAdpdF9mYqtibXJZMyYrR9CDyXq/IfMizG6vr; Received: from vorkosigan.ru.ac.za ([2001:4200:1010:1058:219:d1ff:fe9f:a932]:62798) by d.mail.ru.ac.za with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.69 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1LroUk-0007Hw-QA; Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:16:18 +0200 From: Jonathan McKeown Organization: Rhodes University To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 09:16:12 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.10 References: <49D76B02.4060201@onetel.com> <200904080859.41807.j.mckeown@ru.ac.za> <54db43990904081224l7c006143icac411c482401620@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <54db43990904081224l7c006143icac411c482401620@mail.gmail.com> X-Face: $@VrUx^RHy/}yu]jKf/<4T%/d|F+$j-Ol2"2J$q+%OK1]&/G_S9(=?utf-8?q?HkaQ*=60!=3FYOK=3FY!=27M=60C=0A=09aP=5C9nVPF8Q=7DCilHH8l=3B=7E!4?= =?utf-8?q?2HK6=273lg4J=7Daz?=@1Dqqh:J]M^"YPn*2IWrZON$1+G?oX3@ =?utf-8?q?k=230=0A=0954XDRg=3DYn=5FF-etwot4U=24b?=dTS{i X-Virus-Scanned: d.mail.ru.ac.za (2001:4200:1010::25:4) X-Authenticated-User: s0900137 from vorkosigan.ru.ac.za (2001:4200:1010:1058:219:d1ff:fe9f:a932) using auth_plaintext Cc: Bob Johnson Subject: Re: new package system proposal X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 07:16:23 -0000 On Wednesday 08 April 2009 21:24:00 Bob Johnson wrote: > PC-BSD seems to already keep up-to-date binary packages of their > applications. Do they accomplish that by only offering a small subset > of the full ports collection? Yes - have a look at . I installed PC-BSD on a spare machine to investigate it. The first three ports/metaports I tried to install after completing the base setup were emacs, TeTeX and the Psi Jabber/XMPP client. None of those was available, and after seeing how few prebuilt packages there were in all categories, I gave up. My personal view is that PC-BSD gives the end user an impressive and reasonably slick computer-as-appliance with some ability to customise and still stay ``on the path''. For people who need that, PC-BSD is what they need. My feeling, though, is that anyone who finds themselves wanting to install a bunch of stuff from outside the PBI system (in other words, from ports, which are still there under the hood of PC-BSD) will soon want to switch to mainstream FreeBSD. As such PC-BSD has the potential to be an effective ``gateway drug''(!) Jonathan