From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Dec 17 21:15:07 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0E2C31065678 for ; Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:15:07 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fsb@thefsb.org) Received: from smtp204.iad.emailsrvr.com (smtp204.iad.emailsrvr.com [207.97.245.204]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C11E68FC22 for ; Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:15:06 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fsb@thefsb.org) Received: from relay10.relay.iad.mlsrvr.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by relay10.relay.iad.mlsrvr.com (SMTP Server) with ESMTP id CDBA41EA6FB; Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:15:05 -0500 (EST) Received: by relay10.relay.iad.mlsrvr.com (Authenticated sender: fsb-AT-thefsb.org) with ESMTPSA id 9139E1E58A9; Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:15:04 -0500 (EST) User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/12.10.0.080409 Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:15:03 -0500 From: Tom Worster To: Matthew Seaman Message-ID: Thread-Topic: lang/php5 port Thread-Index: AclgjIbM0orgvUowaUKtQw4Ou2o3LA== In-Reply-To: <49493F7E.7050508@infracaninophile.co.uk> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Cc: Paul Schmehl , Steve Bertrand , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, Mel Subject: Re: lang/php5 port 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: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:15:07 -0000 On 12/17/08 1:05 PM, "Matthew Seaman" wrote: > Tom Worster wrote: > >> i'm certainly not smart enough to know what might be a better way to design >> ports like php. but one thing seems odd to me. i ended up with dozens of >> ports installed that appeared to use nothing but the same php-5.2.8.tar.bz2 >> distfile. relative to what i'm used to with php (i.e. manual configure, >> compile, install) this seems a bit untidy and i'm nervous what it might mean >> for maintenance. > > Absolutely not. Don't be confused that the various php5-foo ports all use > the same distfile: it's a big lump of code, and the individual modules > selectively > compile bits of it. Don't be perturbed that you have a large number of ports > installed -- after all a port is ultimately just a set of files treated > together > as a block. This just means you're getting finer grained control over what > you've > got installed on your machine. fair enough. this seems analogous to the long list of options i used to use on ./configure when installing from the php tarball. > No -- the current design of the way PHP is dealt with in ports is brilliant. > > Consider the alternative -- in fact the way it used to be done. relative to other ways of designing ports i can accept that the current one is better. my point of view, however, is someone transitioning from manual install to using lang/php5-extensions. it's new to me and i need to learn. the conversation here has been very helpful (thanks again, all). at the same time i'm transitioning from 6.2 to 7.0 and learning how to use freebsd-update and portmaster. previously, upgrading freebsd was such a big project that i'd do it on the production servers very infrequently and reinstalling all the apps from scratch after os upgrade seemed acceptable. but now it seems silly not to take advantage of the new automation tools for freebsd and ports updates. hence learning to use ports for everything seems like the way to go.