Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 15:04:04 -0500 (EST) From: Chris BeHanna <behanna@zbzoom.net> To: FreeBSD-Stable <stable@freebsd.org> Cc: "'freebsd-ports@freebsd.org'" <freebsd-ports@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: pkg_version Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0011291500170.53996-100000@browning.pennasoft.com> In-Reply-To: <7799D023E51ED311BFB50008C75DD7B402881AEC@uschiexc05.kweb.us.kpmg.com>
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On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Passki, Jonathan P wrote:
> <rant>
> Of all the understanding and interaction I do with FreeBSD, this one issue,
> the issue of a seamless (or semi-seamless) upgrade of installed ports seems
> to be the one I have never seen a consistent solution with. Given my lack
> of port understanding, I have no right to criticize something that I
> wouldn't know how to fix, but doesn't it seem odd that upgrading
> applications like this are difficult or esoteric to many people (search
> archives, the question keeps on coming up). Also, when people approach me
> about the port upgrade procedures, and ask if it's better than Debian's, I
> tend to say it isn't. I love the ports, and I appreciate all the effort
> people have put into porting applications and package install procedures,
> but...
>
> Maybe it's just the nature of installed ports that make them so difficult to
> upgrade, but it's still for me, a pain when there are so many dependencies
> (usually XFree86 + window manager + apps related to window manager), and not
> knowing what ones to do in what order, and one utility that can do all this.
> There's a pkg_add(1), pkg_create(1), pkg_delete(1), pkg_info(1), and a
> pkg_version(1), but not a single utility that should be called pkg_upgrade,
> which does it with the most reduced effort possible
> </rant>
>
> Feel free to flame, I put on the fire retardant suit when I wrote this :)
> I'm blaming most of this on myself for perhaps a lack of understanding, but
> there have been many before with the same question. Also, wouldn't this be
> good advocacy to house a more robust port system?
I posted this the other day, then went ahead and installed it to
see what it looked like. /usr/ports/sysutils/pib is a GUI for
maintaining ports. You can browse the ports in one listbox, select
one, and see its build and runtime dependencies. Clicking on one of
the dependencies changes the view to that package and *its* build and
runtime dependencies.
It's not completely ideal, but it will let you more or less easily
navigate the dependency tree and manually traverse it for an upgrade.
Unfortunately, pib doesn't tell you if a package is installed or,
if so, if it's up to date. Between pib and pkg_version -v >
/tmp/packages, one should be pretty well set.
It isn't "fire and forget", but given all of the dependencies
involved, as well as special flags that you might want to pass to a build
(e.g., WITH_GNOME and WITH_KDE), I'm not sure you'd want that anyway.
--
Chris BeHanna
Software Engineer
behanna@bogus.zbzoom.net Remove "bogus" before responding.
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