Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2026 13:59:06 -0700 From: "Edward Sanford Sutton, III" <mirror176@hotmail.com> To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Trying to understand base system packages Message-ID: <SA1PR11MB881192272C385038303256A1E663A@SA1PR11MB8811.namprd11.prod.outlook.com> In-Reply-To: <aYxOfweurBxTGqsX@apollonios> References: <20251205122830.cb88058f193987b47a95a77c@gmail.com> <20251205134510.6fae5caf@dorfdsl.de> <20251205143119.441cc1bd8722345d074a4480@gmail.com> <16e766b9-f442-4cef-a991-c940f6b8182a@gmail.com> <20251207081139.7e2f65b97b4c089ac0add431@gmail.com> <aTkvIvFJHLf4WxUa@amaryllis.le-fay.org> <aTm6mdWQ_nyv21El@rain.cave> <20251210203319.c248921c4e6aca9ba07458ae@gmail.com> <aToOxuaXNTa5LOOP@amaryllis.le-fay.org> <aYxOfweurBxTGqsX@apollonios>
index | next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail
On 2/11/26 02:40, Mathias M. wrote: > On Thu, Dec 11, 2025 at 12:22:30AM +0000, Lexi Winter wrote: >> >> - it offers clear advantages for many users, despite having some rough >> edges, so there is a user benefit to providing it for people who want >> to use it; >> > > As a random, long time FreeBSD user: > Those 'advantages' elude me and are anything but clear. A package manager keeps track of what to install and later to uninstall. Before that, freebsd-update and (my main experience/knowledge) source updates use a set of handcrafted tools to try to manually remove content that no longer exists because it has been removed or comes from an option that was disabled for the current build. Some of those steps have a catch in that if you go too long since its last cleanup then what it should clean out has been removed from the list so will be leftover debris which may or may not impact how the system currently runs. Without a source install, its just a tarball used to install it but no records are kept for future reference of what was put in by that extraction or any other steps. In my opinion the build system's `make delete-old` and similar in my opinion should have a complete list that is not pruned available even if it is slower to run. It could be written to be a sequential list that optionally, but by default, aborts further cleanup steps once something is no longer present when trying to clean it or it could use 1+ files to keep track of previously completed cleanup steps to skip ones that are completed though I'd see the 1+ extra files as likely unneeded bloat by comparison but it allows for a more reliable cleanup stage without having to fall back to a full cleanup. The package manager controlling it means its tracked by a system designed to track it so uninstall is an actual operation with a better controlled and tracked outcome. It also opens the door for optional things to be easily excluded/removed without requiring a rebuild. One thing I consider a disadvantage if I understand it correctly is pkg upgrades by doing a full removal + reinstall so anytime a small change happens for what is covered by a package then it is a larger operation than should be necessary to download and replace what actually changed. I'm not sure how much that happens with freebsd-update but source installs seem to be a full rewrite unless you run it in pieces and not `make -C /usr/src installworld` or its installkernel operation. I consider that a limitation of pkg itself and hope that too can change in the future which will accelerate almost all upgrades and minimize disk wear for better life on low quality storage devices without requiring a workaround like ZFS's dedup. I'm not sure how the other options compare regarding handling dealing with interrupted/failed updates but from source you can always start over the install to get back to an expected state as long as you can boot the system (even from separate media) and can access the build environment + install destination. > But maybe that's just me, so y'all keep working on it and eventually > I'll get it, when things take shape later down the road. > > Regards, > Mathiashome | help
Want to link to this message? Use this
URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?SA1PR11MB881192272C385038303256A1E663A>