Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2006 12:18:26 +0800 From: "Jiawei Ye" <leafy7382@gmail.com> To: "Michael W. Lucas" <mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org> Cc: ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: "the best" port update tool Message-ID: <c21e92e20608212118j30a074b6g5a6bad6d7844dcaa@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <20060822010628.GA96258@bewilderbeast.blackhelicopters.org> References: <20060822010628.GA96258@bewilderbeast.blackhelicopters.org>
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On 8/22/06, Michael W. Lucas <mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> After a database headache caused by my own doofusity, I've been
> contemplating switching from portupgrade. (Hey, it's been a few
> years, things could have changed.) Checking in /usr/ports/sysutils,
> it seems that we have a whole bunch of different tools -- portmaster,
> portmanager, portsman, and portupgrade.
>
> A search of the mailing list archive doesn't seem to lead me to a
> clear successor or improvement upon portupgrade. Is portupgrade still
> as good as it gets, or are we headed towards another tool any time
> soon?
>
> Thanks,
> ==ml
Hi, personally I don't think any single one has a big win over the
others. I have used portupgrade, portmanager, portmaster. Here are
what I think of them:
1) Portupgrade
It is a suite. Being a suite, portsclean, pkg_glob and these little
utilities are very handy at keeping the ports tree as lean as
possible. I especially like "pkg_deinstall -rR" when removing a large
suite of software such as KDE or GNOME. Though portmanager/master has
a "leaves" removal mode, they are not comparable to pkg_deinstall in
this sense.
Portupgrade builds its own database and depends on ruby, which has
created some fluctuation in stability in recent months, but it also
has the flexibility to define alternative dependancies in centralized
configuration files.
2) Portmanager
This started out as a rewrite of portupgrade in C, which proved to be
quite fast but the development was somewhat more error-prone and IIRC
it is no longer being developed.
3) Portmaster
This is what I am using now, along with portconf to define per-port
make flags and options. The only things I miss from portmaster are the
pkg_deinstall ability and an easy way to define alternative
dependancies. Speed doesn't seem to be a problem compared to
portmanager though it is written as a shell script.
One feature from portupgrade I would like to see in portmaster is the
ability to go on upgrading other ports if one of them failed.
That is my 2 cents worth,
Jiawei Ye
--
"Without the userland, the kernel is useless."
--inspired by The Tao of Programming
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