Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2024 11:25:21 -0700 From: fatty.merchandise677@aceecat.org To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: port installation basics Message-ID: <qZcAapFiQBQtJ9P1@aceecat.org>
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Hello, I'm trying FreeBSD again (penguin news is depressing) and I face again some of the problems I remember. I am torn between packages and ports. I read discouraging things about using both, and yet I seem to need both for the following reasons: - there are a few things I absolutely must have on a system to do anything at all (so in particular, to set up and compile ports): bash, sudo, screen, vim, rsync, git. I think that covers it. These are not in the base, so I must install packages for them. This alone wouldn't be a show stopper because I could rebuild them from ports once I'm up and running. But. - I have not figured out how to build ports without getting sucked into unbounded rabbit holes of configuration dialogs. I know the advice to do `make config-recursive` upfront, but it doesn't help: what seems to be happening is that I get config dialogs for *all potential* recursive dependencies of the port I'm building, regardless of my answers along the way. For example, even if I exclude X11 support in git configuration, I am then confronted with dialogs which are only relevant to gitk. Is there any way to avoid this? - on the other hand, some packages are egregiously over-configured, often with GUI extras I have no use for. For example, graphviz. I just want to run dot to build png or pdf files. So this would be a good time to use a port (which I assume can disable the GUI parts), if it weren't for the above. Your thoughts? Thanks, -- Ian
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