From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 2 19:27:52 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1AA6A1065676 for ; Fri, 2 Oct 2009 19:27:52 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dougb@FreeBSD.org) Received: from mail2.fluidhosting.com (mx21.fluidhosting.com [204.14.89.4]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BB5798FC12 for ; Fri, 2 Oct 2009 19:27:51 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 18359 invoked by uid 399); 2 Oct 2009 19:27:49 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO foreign.dougb.net) (dougb@dougbarton.us@127.0.0.1) by localhost with ESMTPAM; 2 Oct 2009 19:27:49 -0000 X-Originating-IP: 127.0.0.1 X-Sender: dougb@dougbarton.us Message-ID: <4AC65427.6020107@FreeBSD.org> Date: Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:27:35 -0700 From: Doug Barton Organization: http://www.FreeBSD.org/ User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (X11/20090822) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Christer Solskogen References: In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 0.96.0 OpenPGP: id=D5B2F0FB Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Questions regarding portmaster's man page 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: Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:27:52 -0000 Christer Solskogen wrote: > Hi! > > The man page for portmaster say this: > Alternatively you could use portmaster -a -f -D to do an ``in place'' > update of your ports. If that process is interrupted for any reason you > can use portmaster -a -f -D -R to avoid rebuilding ports already rebuilt > on previous runs. However the first method (delete everything and rein- > stall) is preferred. > > I'm wondering why the first method is preferred. First before I forget, in general it's always a good idea to send a message to freebsd-questions@freebsd.org first if you're not sure what list to send it to, so you didn't do anything wrong here. On the other hand, if you have a question about a ports-related issue you should probably send it to freebsd-ports@freebsd.org where you are more likely to get a focused response. That said, there are a couple of answers to your question. Even though we try to be thorough with the ports system removing files after a port is deinstalled there are occasionally problems so if you've had a /usr/local populated with ports for a few years there is probably old cruft in there that it would be good to remove. The other answer is that doing an "in place" upgrade will inevitably end up with some ports compiled against old libs, which is not a good thing. Not to mention that there will likely be some dependencies left over on your system that you don't need. The method described in portmaster's man page encourages you to save a list of the "root" and "leaf" ports you're using. These are the ports that are not depended on by other ports, which generally means that they are the actual applications you're using (like firefox, etc.). By telling portmaster to install only these ports and letting the ports system handle the dependencies for the new conditions you're likely to get a cleaner upgrade. Those are the two main reasons. There are occasionally other reasons, such as the libusb problems with hal that people are experiencing after upgrades to 8.0 that just make "delete and reinstall" the cleaner option and the one that should be recommended most highly. hope this helps, Doug -- This .signature sanitized for your protection