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Date:      Thu, 11 Nov 1999 13:19:15 +0200
From:      Oren Sarig <sarig@bezeqint.net>
To:        fredrik.carlen@telia.com, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Ports versus packages
Message-ID:  <010701bf2c36$99798f80$b07719d4@asmodean>
References:  <99111020442400.01521@bozo.skeleton.se>

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There is a small misunderstanding here... `porting' means
taking the source to a program for another system and
modifing it to run on yours. That is not installing.

Packages are precompiled. They come in .tgz format. You are
not suppose to extract them. You install them with:
pkg_add <package name>.tgz
See `man pkg_add` for more details.

Ports are patches to the source code to get it to run on
freebsd. The ports collection is a collection of patches to
get 2000+ programs running on freebsd. To use them, go to
/usr/ports/<categorie>/<package>
and type
make all install
The make program will fetch the program source, apply
patches, compile it, and install.

If you just want to get a program running, just get the
binary package (either from FTP or the CD), and do a pkg_add
to install it. That is all it takes to install a program.
Even simpler than installing windows programs ;)

--
Oren Sarig
sarig@bezeqint.net

Note: Packages are actually precompiled ports

----- Original Message -----
From: Fredrik Carlen <fredrik.carlen@telia.com>
To: <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 1999 9:38 PM
Subject: Ports versus packages


> What does happen when you do pkg_add?
> I thought I had this figured out, but obviously, I
haven't...
>
> I thought packages were pre-compiled, and that ports were
like adapting the
> software to install on FreeBSD, only done by somebody else
than me (who has a
> very rudimentary knowledge of this anyway).
>
> I have tried, unsuccessfully, to get some info on the
process of "installing"
> UNIX software (although I know this is called porting...),
does anybody know
> some free way of getting this info? I really can't afford
to buy that Gerg
> Lehey book "Porting UNIX software" right now, and I don't
even know whether I
> need it or not.
>
> I can solve a number of intricate mathematic problems, but
I can't get Lynx to
> install properly... :(
>
> /Fredrik
>
>
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