From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Apr 28 22:15:12 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from andrsn.stanford.edu (andrsn.Stanford.EDU [171.66.112.163]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0735337B41E for ; Sun, 28 Apr 2002 22:15:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (localhost.stanford.edu [127.0.0.1]) by andrsn.stanford.edu (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g3T56hH20919; Sun, 28 Apr 2002 22:06:43 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from andrsn@andrsn.stanford.edu) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 22:06:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Annelise Anderson To: "N. Thomas" Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: building ports *outside* /usr In-Reply-To: <20020429045250.GA3915@cise.ufl.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Mon, 29 Apr 2002, N. Thomas wrote: > * Peter Ulrich Kruppa [2002-04-29 06:41:39 +0000]: > > > > > > > > > What is the best way to do this, i.e. is there documentation available for > > > compiling packages outside /usr/ports? > > > > As a "regular user" you are not allowed to install software - you > > would need root access for this. > > hi Uli, > > I think you misunderstood what I intended to do. I want to compile software > and install in my home directory for my own personal use. I never mean for > this to be installed system wide. > > thomas > > I have installed the ports collection somewhere other than /usr (e.g., in /usr/local/ports) and set the variable PORTSDIR to wherever it was located. I have found that not everything works, e.g., make search does not work. Various people have suggested fixes for this particular problem, but I also found that some stuff just didn't compile, although most stuff did. However, the ports collection installs with directories owned by root:wheel, and writable only by root. You would, I think, have to get the ports collection installed and owned by you as a user in order to be able to build. The default installation location is /usr/local except for X stuff, which is /usr/X11R6. You'd have to deal with that issue too. See /usr/ports/Mk for the makefiles that are used (they are actually quite complicated). Most of the software is buildable and runnable by a user without root privileges, but of course not installable in the regular structure. Annelise -- Annelise Anderson Author of: FreeBSD: An Open-Source Operating System for Your PC Available from: BSDmall.com and amazon.com Book Website: http://www.bittreepress.com/FreeBSD/introbook/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message