From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat May 13 19:30:19 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org 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 3176C16A403 for ; Sat, 13 May 2006 19:30:19 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from beech@alaskaparadise.com) Received: from pinnacle.akherb.com (60-105-237-24.gci.net [24.237.105.60]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3118543D4C for ; Sat, 13 May 2006 19:30:18 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from beech@alaskaparadise.com) Received: by pinnacle.akherb.com (Postfix, from userid 1007) id CBA635DAC; Sat, 13 May 2006 11:30:17 -0800 (AKDT) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.1 (2006-03-10) on pinnacle.akherb.com X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.5 required=4.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.1.1 Received: from [192.168.241.106] (7-137-58-66.gci.net [66.58.137.7]) by pinnacle.akherb.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7324C5CB2; Sat, 13 May 2006 11:30:15 -0800 (AKDT) From: Beech Rintoul Organization: Alaska Paradise To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, fbsd@a1poweruser.com Date: Sat, 13 May 2006 11:30:11 -0800 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.1 References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="nextPart2610319.QjHrSEOCcB"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-sha1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <200605131130.13639.beech@alaskaparadise.com> Cc: Subject: Re: Has the port collection become to large to handle. X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 13 May 2006 19:30:19 -0000 --nextPart2610319.QjHrSEOCcB Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline On Saturday 13 May 2006 10:28, fbsd wrote: > To all question list readers; > > Now with 14576 ports in the collection where do you > draw the line that its too large to be downloading > the whole collection when you just use 10 or 20 of them? > The port collection is growing at a ever increasing rate per month. > The mass majority of the ports are so special purpose that only a > very few people have need of them. Sure there are ways to limit > the categories you select to download, but still the size of > the most used categories is too large and loaded with ports not > commonly used by the general user. > > So people them use the packages. But the problem with the > packages is they are not updated every time changes are > made to the port they were created from. Also packages that > have dependants like php4/php5 or mysql4/mysql5 are not being > updated to use the newer versions of those dependants as they come > out. > > I for one think the port/package collection has already grown to > large to handle in it's present state. > Users are consuming massive bandwidth to download and it > consumes a very large chunk of disk space. Saying nothing about > the wasted resources consumed to back it up repeatedly. > > I have gone to using the package version for everything and > only downloading the ports config files for packages that > I need to compile from scratch to change some add on function. > This methodology has worked fine since FreeBSD version 3.0 as > I used each new release of FreeBSD up to 6.1. > > Now in 6.1 there is problems with packages that have not been > recreated using the new system make file. > This problem is caused by there being no mandatory requirement on > the ports maintainers to recreate the packages any time one of the > dependants change or when changes are made to the canned make > process > or when dependants show up as broken. Yes I know what a large task > this is and that it requires a lot of run time to accomplish. Compiling a package is trivial, but it would be a security nightmare to hav= e=20 maintainers be responsible for it. All packages are built in an environment= =20 known to be secure. If you really want to help, consider donating some=20 hardware to the build cluster. > > So my question is how do we users make our needs known > to the ports maintainer group so that will seriously address > the problem of the packages being outdated? > > Are there other people on this list who are dissatisfied with the > packages and the problems associated with using packages and ports > mixed together? > > What are your thoughts about requesting the ports group to create > a new category containing just the ports most commonly used > including > their dependents and making this general category the default > used to download. This would be a much smaller sized download > containing everything necessary to build the most used ports. > Many of the dependents are used over and over by many > different port applications. > > This new category would them be given priority in keeping > their packages up to date. Could even take this idea one step > further > and say that only ports in this category will have packages > built and keep up to date. All ports not in this special > category will not have packages built at all. I think this > would help the port group to better manager their people resources > and serve the needs of the user community better. > > Another idea I would like to throw out to the list is how about > requesting the ports group to add a function to packages so the > installer of the package can select what version of the dependent > components should be included in the install. > Much like "make config" does in the ports system? > The packages system already automatically launches the download > of dependent packages so why not give the installer the option to > select which version of the dependent to fetch. > Like in php4/5 or mysql4/5 or apache 13/20. This way the package > is more flexible and the port maintainer does not have to build > a different version of the parent package for each version of > the dependant which is available. > > The whole idea behind this post is to give the general users who > reads this questions list an opportunity to brainstorm about ways to > make the ports/package collection better and easier to use. > This may help the ports group in understanding the needs and > direction we the users would like to see the management of > the collection to take. > If we don't speak up they will just think things are ok as they are > now. > FreeBSD is a public project. The ports group are not the only > users who can give input about the direction and policies > concerning the future of the ports/package collection. > > > All feedback welcome. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to > "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" =2D-=20 =2D------------------------------------------------------------------------= =2D------------- Beech Rintoul - Sys. Administrator - beech@alaskaparadise.com /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | Alaska Paradise \ / - NO HTML/RTF in e-mail | 201 East 9Th Avenue Ste.310 X - NO Word docs in e-mail | Anchorage, AK 99501 / \ - Please visit Alaska Paradise - http://www.alaskaparadise.com =2D------------------------------------------------------------------------= =2D------------- --nextPart2610319.QjHrSEOCcB Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQBEZjPFp5D0B1NlT4URArXDAJ407IjYCO+qHVJySlcvO+fTrwSL0QCfVn3E bJfbGWtcaTpK5Vwv22hCEwM= =PH2O -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --nextPart2610319.QjHrSEOCcB--