Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2025 14:13:21 -0700 From: "Dan Mahoney (ports)" <freebsd@gushi.org> To: Martin <iio7@protonmail.com> Cc: "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: About the upcoming changes to pkgbase Message-ID: <7CD03941-6CB0-4572-A9FB-2130FCE53DCE@gushi.org> In-Reply-To: <jRGVZY419OAIyqYXw9JLpXYYqsqCbChnrhZcd-QwSpw8_2qzJSphpZB0eErMqZOR5EAf3r6nTvC9YXWXprdebznqHT7-MudNSFQU8JJQPp8=@protonmail.com> References: <jRGVZY419OAIyqYXw9JLpXYYqsqCbChnrhZcd-QwSpw8_2qzJSphpZB0eErMqZOR5EAf3r6nTvC9YXWXprdebznqHT7-MudNSFQU8JJQPp8=@protonmail.com>
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> On Oct 10, 2025, at 1:25=E2=80=AFPM, Martin <iio7@protonmail.com> = wrote: >=20 > Regarding the upcoming change from freebsd-update to pkgbase, I have > two questions which I haven't been able to find a clear answer to, or > perhaps I have overlooked something. >=20 > In the documentation[1] it says that pkgbase will replace tarball > distribution sets, such as base.txz or kernel.txz. >=20 > This almost made me cry because it's so easy to manually download > those tarballs and upgrade the system manually without using > freebsd-update. Those tarballs have saved my butt on more than one occasion, especially = when other upgrade methods have broken. I really do hope that at the = very least someone continues to produce a minimal tarball that can be = used to reset everything short of /usr/local to a known good state. = I've definitely had actual physical machines out in the field that I = couldn't just redeploy from an AWS console. Fixing my system would go = from not just copying one tar file over, but hundreds. I've made extensive use of mfsbsd (which really needs some love, I've = heard whispers it'll be more "official" soon). With pkgdb, the system is also now at the mercy of a sqlite DB (and the = *same* db as your ports-pkgs, if I'm not mistaken) and I've definitely = seen db corruption events over the years (less so recently, to be fair). I do also find it troubling that the command to use pkgbase will be = "pkg" and not "pkgbase" or "pkg --base" or whatever. That you'll = effectively be upgrading OS components right alongside ports, using the = same commands to upgrade only ports you've been using for a decade or = more. This has been mentioned on several lists, by several people. Now, this is the way linux has worked for a long time (every discrete OS = component is its own package) -- whether it's an RPM based distro or a = .deb based one, and I'm sure documentation will emerge as to how to do = all the things we need to. I just hope it all eventually winds up being = first-party documentation, and not buried some some wiki page, or some = forum post with "try this" and zero replies thereafter. -Dan=
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