Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 18:01:54 -0700 From: dannyman <dannyman@toldme.com> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: Joseph Mallett <jmallett@newgold.net>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: (long) upgrade kit for 3.x ports?! Message-ID: <20010509180154.E17000@dell.dannyland.org> In-Reply-To: <200105100026.RAA04754@usr06.primenet.com>; from tlambert@primenet.com on Thu, May 10, 2001 at 12:24:44AM %2B0000 References: <20010509140838.C17000@dell.dannyland.org> <200105100026.RAA04754@usr06.primenet.com>
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On Thu, May 10, 2001 at 12:24:44AM +0000, Terry Lambert wrote:
[...]
> You have shot yourself in the foot, and you need to _manually_
> downgrade, and pray you can find the older distribution files
> which the /usr/ports which matches your OS version _somewhere_,
> or you must _resign yourself to upgrading_.
I will replace the box with a newer version eventually.
For now, I find it suffices to place this in /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk:
BSDPORTMKVERSION= 350000
Thank you for the tip.
> Then go to a system _of the same version_ where the build _works_,
> and:
>
> cd /tmp
> tar czf ports.tar.gz /usr/ports
Systems are same version, but the working system has a custom kernel, which
gives it a higher OSVERSION. I downgraded to the 350000 of the 3.5-RELEASE
GENERIC kernel.
> NOTE: One _very_ common reason that _old_ machines have ports
> which work on _one_ of them, but _not_ on another, is
> that the ports system _caches_ distribution files, and
> the _broken_ machine doesn't have a cached copy of the
> distribution file, but the _working_ machine does. If
> you follow the process outlined above, it will _also_
> copy the cached copy of the distribution file, and things
> will work on the _broken_ machine as well, after you
> have unpacked the /usr/ports from the _working_ machine.
I mount ports over NFS. :)
> NOTE!: The main reason that ports are not supported on older
> machines is that the people who created the software
> have moved onto newer versions, but there is no ports
> maintainer among the FreeBSD ports maintainers for the
> older versions of FreeBSD, so there is _no_ "new"
> /usr/ports for that version of FreeBSD which references
> the _newer_ distribution files, which the authors of
> those files have changed out from under the FreeBSD ports
> system (usually by releasing a new version of their
> software, and deleting the old version from their FTP
> site, instead of archiving it for all eternity, so that
> people who refuse to upgrade their OS will not suffer).
And yet, the current Postfix port has:
replace:
.if ${OSVERSION} >= 400014
@${ECHO_MSG} "===> Activating postfix in /etc/mail/mailer.conf"
[...]
.else
@${ECHO_MSG} "===> Replacing sendmail"
How convenient that the Postfix port does not go out of its way to remove
compatability logic explicitly added for what is by now an "unsupported"
version of FreeBSD, even though the ports tree REFUSES to be compatible with
said version of FreeBSD.
How convenient that just a few months ago I was able to download an upgrade
kit for 3.5-RELEASE to use then-current ports.
> NOTE!!: There is _no way in hell_ you can use a newer /usr/ports
> on an older machine. Ever. Forget about trying. The
> message you got when you tried should probably have been
> _MUCH_ more strongly worded! You will _BREAK_ your
> ability to use /usr/ports _at all_ if you unpack a new
> version of a mismatched /usr/ports onto an old system.
California is a far better place than hell, I guess, because I use ports
successfully all of the time!
, I have used bleeding-edge ports tree on truly ancient boxen for years. Over
time, more and more ports simply fail to compile, and I am reminded that maybe
just maybe I should upgrade my ancient machine. The beauty of the ports
system is its flexibility. You're freaking out about me using 4.x ports on a
3.5 box? I'm told that you can use the NetBSD ports true to build things for
Solaris!
That we don't offer an upgrade kit, or at least simple "kludge
/usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk BSDPORTMKVERSION= to match the output of 'sysctl -n
kern.osreldate' and pray that some errant port doesn't destroy your system in
some new and interesting way" pointer on http://www.FreeBSD.org/ports/ just
... frustrates me.
I mean, 3.5 was released LESS THAN ONE YEAR AGO and now I am FORCED TO
UPGRADE if I want to install a single piece of software?! That strikes me as
pointlessly fascist.
*sigh*
And while I am griping about my favorite OS, why do I have to
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO_8859-1/books/faq/book.html#ADD-PTY
instead of just frobbing some sysctl knob? :(
-danny
--
http://dannyman.toldme.com/
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