From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Apr 10 07:56:00 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 402F637B401 for ; Thu, 10 Apr 2003 07:56:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mired.org (ip68-97-54-220.ok.ok.cox.net [68.97.54.220]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 4C31F43FAF for ; Thu, 10 Apr 2003 07:55:58 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mwm-dated-1050418557.9a7e13@mired.org) Received: (qmail 57638 invoked from network); 10 Apr 2003 14:55:57 -0000 Received: from localhost.mired.org (HELO guru.mired.org) (127.0.0.1) by localhost.mired.org with SMTP; 10 Apr 2003 14:55:57 -0000 Received: by guru.mired.org (tmda-inject, from uid 100); Thu, 10 Apr 2003 09:55:57 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <16021.34301.38162.413020@guru.mired.org> Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 09:55:57 -0500 To: charles@wranglers.com.au In-Reply-To: <1049939391.47109.31.camel@feynman> References: <1049855817.93999.84.camel@feynman> <16020.15129.740634.315264@guru.mired.org> <1049939391.47109.31.camel@feynman> X-Mailer: VM 7.07 under 21.1 (patch 14) "Cuyahoga Valley" XEmacs Lucid X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`; h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ From: Mike Meyer X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/0.73 (Jet Pilot) cc: stevem@linuxmail.org cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Replacing Win95 with FreeBSD for low cost home PCs 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: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 14:56:00 -0000 In <1049939391.47109.31.camel@feynman>, Charles Young typed: > On Thu, 2003-04-10 at 01:24, Mike Meyer wrote: > > In <1049855817.93999.84.camel@feynman>, Charles Young typed: > > > What I've done is to set up a meta port of a workstation suite and then > > > install this on each machine from a central dist site via NFS. I found > > > there were fewer issues this way, though the build process can take a > > > mighty long time. > > > > Might I suggest - to both of you - that these would be easier if you > > built packages out of these, and nfs-mounted the directory with the > > packages in them? That way you'd only have to build things once, and > > could still install everything by installing the package of the > > meta-port. > > I like the way you think Mike, however I have chosen to do this via > ports rather than packages because of three reasons: > 1. For reasons that I can only define as religious, I like to build > things for a specific target architecture - which means optimising for > the specific CPU and devices in the system. As I'm installing into > offices that have generally grown organically, there is usually no > standardised hardware. This means building a new kernel for each > machine. While this does not necessarily mean anything once I get to > install ports - philosophically I prefer to build an entire system in > the same manner - I've a feeling (completely without measured basis I > might point out) that OpenOffice.org, for example, behaves better if > built from source on the target machine. That one I can't argue with. I don't have that many different types of machines, and building for the lowest common denominator doesn't hurt the faster machines that much. Of course, I'm running a commercial office suite, so it's probably built for 386 and up. One of these days I'll convert to openoffice. > 2. I find updating from sources much cleaner that using packages. New > Xft? no problem, just run a portupgrade -fr Xft. Portupgrade will install from packages. Just do portupgrade -Pfr Xft. > 3. One of the companies has two offices separated by a VPN over an ADSL > connection. Bandwidth through this is restricted. I have a push tool > (imaginatively entitled 'pushtool') that triggers a cvsup, portsdb -uU > and portupgrade with the supplied arguments on the remote machine. I use > this to do sitewide updates at selected moments using a central CVS > repository. Doing this via source means that often only patches are > transferred which I don't believe is ever the case for packages. > I must admit, however that this is a special case, as usually I just > mount /usr/ports/distfiles on the workstations via NFS to a file server, > so generally there would be no difference. > > OK having typed all this I find I can't really justify my stance > scientifically except for point 3 and then only in certain > circumstances. It just feels better to me to do stuff with source. I like doing stuff with source as well. I install things with LOCALBASE=/usr/opt so that things that I can keep things installed from ports separate from things locally written or installed from the net at large. However, I still build packages on the fast machine to install on the slower ones. I get the options I want and the same warm fuzzy feeling from having installed from source because *I built the package from source*. http://www.mired.org/consulting.html Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.