From owner-freebsd-ports Fri Jan 26 3:30:57 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from hawk.prod.itd.earthlink.net (hawk.prod.itd.earthlink.net [207.217.120.22]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9363637B401 for ; Fri, 26 Jan 2001 03:30:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from met_bsd.priv.metrol.net (pool0065.cvx5-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net [209.178.152.65]) by hawk.prod.itd.earthlink.net (EL-8_9_3_3/8.9.3) with SMTP id DAA29006; Fri, 26 Jan 2001 03:30:21 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Collette To: Neil Blakey-Milner Subject: Re: Ports vs. Source updating Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 03:26:52 -0800 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.1.99] Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" References: <01012600483500.04196@met_bsd.priv.metrol.net> <20010126105751.A92382@rapier.smartspace.co.za> In-Reply-To: <20010126105751.A92382@rapier.smartspace.co.za> Cc: ports@FreeBSD.ORG MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <01012603265200.00377@met_bsd.priv.metrol.net> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Neil, I thought I recalled reading some folks complaining about this, but after a short look in my mail client I couldn't find the thread. On Friday 26 January 2001 00:57, Neil Blakey-Milner wrote: > Hi, > > Thanks to Michael for bringing up this thing _again_: > > Can I have him update his ports tree without bringing the system up to > > stable? > > It seems we're being silly against with the PORTMKVERSION thing. We > really should support at least the last release, and possibly the last > two releases. I have previously offered to produce patches, but the > offer was refused. I'm not all up to speed on the details, but not being able to update the ports tree for the existing release version is going to make life really tough for new folks in general. I just have to imagine that there's a ton of ports that came out back then that simply don't exist on FTP servers any longer, simply due to version changes. I know my tree has had a bunch of ports deleted on my last couple of updates. Heck, that's not even counting just the bug fixes of the ports that haven't had version changes. > > Anyhow, I'm just hoping that someone can help clarify this for me so I > > can make introducing FreeBSD to a new user as painless as possible. > > This has quickly become my number one local support issue, and the > number of times I've seen this on the lists now indicate it's quickly > becoming a FAQ. > > Can we please rethink this behaviour? I know that those of you working on the development end of the ports system need to run a balancing act between moving things forward and supporting the legacy stuff. If things are as bad as having to run a make world before apps can install, this is one huge issue. Perhaps what is needed here is for 4-STABLE to become 4.3-RELEASE sooner than otherwise planned for? Then at least the fresh installs by newcomers aren't all mucked up. I honestly don't know when 4.3 was expected, nor am I convinced this is the only solution. It certainly doesn't help out those folks who are running production servers sticking to 4.2 and below for a while. I hope that neither my comments, nor Neil's are taken as just being flames, because I don't believe they are. Just felt I needed the disclaimer here, especially after reading some of the threads over on the questions mailing list. Later on, -- Maintain thine air speed lest the ground come up and smite thee. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ports" in the body of the message