From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 20 11:14:08 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AECDH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id C0AD02F3 for ; Wed, 20 May 2015 11:14:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: from bede.qeng-ho.org (bede.qeng-ho.org [217.155.128.241]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 44F33182D for ; Wed, 20 May 2015 11:14:07 +0000 (UTC) Received: from arthur.home.qeng-ho.org (arthur.home.qeng-ho.org [172.23.1.2]) by bede.home.qeng-ho.org (8.14.9/8.14.7) with ESMTP id t4KAx189031279; Wed, 20 May 2015 11:59:02 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from freebsd@qeng-ho.org) Message-ID: <555C68F5.4080205@qeng-ho.org> Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 11:59:01 +0100 From: Arthur Chance User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.6.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Luca Ferrari , freebsd-questions Subject: Re: ports, packages, jails References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 20 May 2015 11:14:08 -0000 On 20/05/2015 11:14, Luca Ferrari wrote: > Hi all, > reading some recent discussions I start wondering what the real > problem with mixing ports and packages is and why one should use jails > to build ports (e.g., as poudriere does). What is the real advantage > of using a building system with regard to a "normal" usage of ports > and packages? To answer your questions in reverse order, building in a jail has the advantage that it doesn't affect the main host until everything has been compiled successfully. In the past, when I used portmaster for updating, on a few occasions it would would update some ports and then fail on one with a buggy update, leaving my machine in mixed state that meant I couldn't use a graphical desktop and/or some services didn't work. Making the update of the running machine separate from rebuilding the ports in poudriere means I don't get those problems. As for mixing ports and packages, there are a couple of possible problems. One is that using ports probably means you've changed some options to non-default values. Packages are built with default options, so clashes can occur. The other is that (re)building all the packages takes time, so for a period a package may be at an earlier version than the same software built from /usr/ports. This can also cause problems. -- Those who do not learn from computing history are doomed to GOTO 1