Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2007 12:32:49 -0700 From: Garrett Cooper <youshi10@u.washington.edu> To: Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: I like Ubuntu Message-ID: <46212C61.9030302@u.washington.edu> In-Reply-To: <20070414192131.GG302@demeter.hydra> References: <2a4057fc0704131021t60249c62k4107ee6cf9f1fb8f@mail.gmail.com> <86mz1ckqlc.fsf@dwp.des.no> <20070413183656.E73976@fledge.watson.org> <86tzvjz2dr.fsf@dwp.des.no> <20070414182309.GB302@demeter.hydra> <46212428.1010102@u.washington.edu> <20070414192131.GG302@demeter.hydra>
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Chad Perrin wrote: > On Sat, Apr 14, 2007 at 11:57:44AM -0700, Garrett Cooper wrote: > >> Well, we have some problems sometimes with cyclic dependencies >> (portinstall / portupgrade and friends), and people aren't really happy >> when names of categories / packages get changed (like what's happened >> recently with the revision of some of the port names), because there's a >> bit more work involved 'fixing' everything back to the same state that >> there was before. People also complain that there aren't enough >> offerings in terms of packages, but that's a resources issue from what I >> understand. >> > As for enough packages . . . if you mean software in general, in the > ports tree, I'd find it pretty difficult to complain. There's only one > Linux distribution with more software in its archives than in the > FreeBSD ports tree (Debian, of course), and it's only about a fifteen > percent increase in available software last I checked. Considering > FreeBSD offers something more like a 500% increase over Fedora (again, > last I checked), I don't have a lot of problems of software availability > with FreeBSD. Is there a significant difference in available software > between ports and packages? Is that the problem? > True. That's the one reason why I had no problem completely leaving Redhat 2 years back :). As for the complaints about packages, it's probably just the compile times and the fact that many users like the fact that they could install and setup a complete system in the approximately same amount of time as a Redhat based system (15mins ~ 1.5 hours, depending on the options and computing resources available -- assuming you have a decent internet connection :)..). > In fact, despite the greater number of packages in Debian's archives, I > find that in practice I find what I actually want/need more often in > FreeBSD's ports tree. That is, of course, highly subjective. > Well, yes and that's subjective, like you've said. >> Overall though, I do like FreeBSD's ports system better than I do >> debian's apt-get system :). Having to shuffle through all of those menus >> and pages package listings to install stuff was a pain. >> > > One thing I prefer about APT over FreeBSD's ports tree is the greater > ease and flexibility of searching for what I need. The apt-cache search > command is great. I'm also a little confused by the failure of whereis > to return expected results when I'm looking for a specific port. These > are things I can work around, however -- unlike some of the things that > have blown up in my face when using APT. > Most likely because you're still using (t)csh and (t)csh needs to run "rehash" in order to see newly installed ports / applications. There's always (a)sh in the base system, and bash available in ports (shells/bash). I personally prefer bash to tcsh, but that's my deal. -Garrett
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