Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 18:21:05 -0800 From: Joshua Tinnin <krinklyfig@spymac.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Cc: "N.J. Thomas" <njt@ayvali.org> Subject: Re: greetings from FreeBSD DLL Hell! Message-ID: <200503231821.06709.krinklyfig@spymac.com> In-Reply-To: <20050324011607.GA1199@ayvali.org> References: <20050324011607.GA1199@ayvali.org>
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On Wednesday 23 March 2005 17:16, "N.J. Thomas" <njt@ayvali.org> wrote: > I installed FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE and was installing packages via > "pkg_add -r foo". This worked, but it went and downloaded older > versions of various programs (i.e. Mozilla Firefox 0.9). How can I > tell pkg_add to use the "5-latest" (5-STABLE? RELENG_5_3?) branch? Do > I have to update my sources before I can do this? Packages are built to work with the particular release specified. Once=20 ports are unfrozen, right before release, they start changing again,=20 and updating new packages for all ports for every minor version bump in=20 the tree is not viable at the moment (12000+ ports), AFAIK, nor would=20 it be in line with freezing ports before release. > So after I installed 5.3 yesterday I installed some packages with > pkg_add -r (which used the 5.3-RELEASE versions of the software), and > then installed some other stuff with ports, and then updated ports > with cvsup and then installed yet some more stuff, and now I seem to > find myself in the FreeBSD equivalent of "DLL Hell". Should I just > blow my system away and start from scratch? Is that the best course > of action to take at this point? You don't need to reinstall the OS, but it might be simpler for you if=20 you deleted all the packages, with pkg_delete -a (from root). From=20 there you can install cvsup and other essentials, but you might=20 consider running /bin/sysinstall to reinstall the packages you once=20 had, just so you're not running blind. =46rom there, you can run cvsup and update your ports tree. In some=20 instances, you can still upgrade to a package, but in others you can't.=20 I find it simpler to build everything on my machine, but I prefer to=20 track ports changes. If you're running a server you don't really want=20 to track ports all the time, just track security updates, otherwise=20 you're going to take it down a lot to upgrade, but if you're running a=20 desktop it can be useful, depending. Sometimes you don't really need to=20 update from the packages on the install CD, but obviously Firefox does=20 need to be updated from 0.9 for security reasons. So, you're going to=20 end up installing some packages and building others, which can lead to=20 some interesting problems, but it's workable. It might be easier to=20 build all from ports, but that's up to you and your CPU cycles. Either=20 way, a utility caleld portupgrade will solve most of your dependency=20 problems for you. Here's a good tutorial on how to use cvsup and portupgrade: http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2003/08/28/FreeBSD_Basics.html Also, I highly recommend reading the handbook:=20 http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html You don't have to read all of it, but you probably want to read what is=20 relevant to your configuration. It's great documentation, and it can=20 help answer many of your questions as situations arise. If you don't=20 find the answer there or from searching the list archives (Google can=20 be useful, too), then come to the list and ask. This question has been=20 asked and answered many times on this list, but I didn't want to leave=20 you hanging ;) =2D jt
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