From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 22 21:45:05 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 71D5137B401 for ; Thu, 22 May 2003 21:45:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dan.emsphone.com (dan.emsphone.com [199.67.51.101]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D4DEA43F93 for ; Thu, 22 May 2003 21:45:04 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dan@dan.emsphone.com) Received: (from dan@localhost) by dan.emsphone.com (8.12.9/8.12.9) id h4N4j499077071; Thu, 22 May 2003 23:45:04 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from dan) Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 23:45:04 -0500 From: Dan Nelson To: David Banning Message-ID: <20030523044504.GA64241@dan.emsphone.com> References: <20030523001419.A81785@skytrackercanada.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20030523001419.A81785@skytrackercanada.com> X-OS: FreeBSD 5.1-BETA X-message-flag: Outlook Error User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ports versus packages X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 04:45:05 -0000 In the last episode (May 23), David Banning said: > I was talking to a debian Linux guy the other day who preferred > debians' precompiled packages because, as he put it, "you just load > it, and go, and it always works -." Note that a FreeBSD user can do exactly the same thing by choosing to use packages, either by using "pkg_add -r" or "portupgrade -PP". Or a debian user can choose to download and build from source, using "apt-get source". I've done both myself. > What is the benifit for us to compile versus just installing the package? > - and how come we tend to use the pre-compiled packages less than some > of our fellow *nix users? - (at least that's my perception) I like it because it lets me pick my own settings for a particular package. uw-imap, for example, defaults to disallowing plaintext passwords, and you have to recompile to enable it. Or consider the mutt port, which has many optional patches that can be applied. Then there's the case of software that cannot be redistributed in binary format with modifications, like qmail. -- Dan Nelson dnelson@allantgroup.com