Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 14:21:43 +0200 From: Erik Trulsson <ertr1013@student.csd.uu.se> To: bart.lateur@skynet.be (Bart Lateur) Cc: <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: About the "ports" Message-ID: <20000512142143.A26054@student.csd.uu.se> In-Reply-To: <3923e743.8641020@relay.skynet.be>; from bart.lateur@skynet.be on Fri, May 12, 2000 at 11:37:38AM %2B0000 References: <3923e743.8641020@relay.skynet.be>
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On Fri, May 12, 2000 at 11:37:38AM +0000, Bart Lateur wrote: > I have the book "The Complete FreeBSD", complete with 4 CD's with 3.4 > from last december. (BTW nice job, Greg.) > > I have some doubts about the ports. > > First of all, I've already installed a few apps, and most of the ports I > have on my local system (in /usr/ports/), are already out of date. So I > have doubts if it's any use for keeping a rather complete ports tree on > disk at all? Oh yes it is. You can easily update the ports tree itself using cvsup and then you can always build the latest versions of programs. > > Second: why are the ports distributed as a subtree with lots of small > files? That doesn't make sense. Downloading the files for a port from > the net is pretty difficult. I have to get my ports on my Windows PC. My > internet connection on FreeBSD box isn't working yet. Using a plain > browser is absolutely impractical. Using an FTP client works. But I > still have the problem that the file ownership and permissions aren't > right when placed on the FreeBSD box. If you have a correctly installed FreeBSD box *with* a working Internet connection the ports mechanism takes care of all the downloading for you. You just go to the correct subdirectory in the /usr/ports tree, type "make install" and wait while the distribution file is downloaded, compiled and installed. Note that the ports mechanism assumes that you *do* have a working Internet connection from your FreeBSD box. > > Why isn't that tree distributed as one single .tar.gz file? For example, > for PostgreSQL, the file would be > /usr/ports/databases/postgresql.tar.gz . One fetch, you have your port. > untar and ungzip, and you're ready to install. > > Small files waste a lot of disk space (say, 32k of disk space for a file > of 200 bytes). That way I'm not surprised that the ports tree takes > 40-100Mb. So maybe that same .tar.gz format in the ports tree would save > a lot of disk space? Until you actually need it. And then you find you > need an update anyway. :-/ On FreeBSD small files don't waste that much space. It is more like 1k of diskspace for a 200 bytes file. > > And finally, is something changed in the ports mechanism since december? > I got the update for postgreSQL, and I've had to modify the Makefile to > make it work: the variable DISTNAME was used, but never declared. I've > had to combine the package name and the version number (I forgot the > exact variables' names) to get it. It compiled just fine. I hope. :-) > -- <Insert your favourite quote here.> Erik Trulsson ertr1013@student.csd.uu.se To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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