From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Aug 18 16:48:44 2003 Return-Path: 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 43FBA37B401 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 2003 16:48:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from devonshire.cnchost.com (devonshire.concentric.net [207.155.248.12]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C5BAF43F85 for ; Mon, 18 Aug 2003 16:48:43 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mwoodson@sricrm.com) Received: from squelcher.redlands.sricrm.com (bdsl.66.14.215.39.gte.net [66.14.215.39]) by devonshire.cnchost.com id TAA26396; Mon, 18 Aug 2003 19:48:39 -0400 (EDT) [ConcentricHost SMTP Relay 1.15] Errors-To: From: Mark Woodson Organization: Statistical Research, Inc. To: "Charles Howse" , "'Adam McLaurin'" Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 16:51:48 -0700 User-Agent: KMail/1.5.3 References: <014201c365e0$03437ca0$04fea8c0@moe> In-Reply-To: <014201c365e0$03437ca0$04fea8c0@moe> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200308181651.48433.mwoodson@sricrm.com> cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Ports vs. Packages X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 23:48:44 -0000 On Monday 18 August 2003 04:25 pm, Charles Howse wrote: > > Neither. I'd recommend installing sysutils/portupgrade and using the > > portinstall option to fetch & install packages (so you always get the > > latest version). Check the -P and -PP options to portinstall. > > > > Note that doing this will require you to have an updated ports tree. > > You'll need to cvsup your ports regularly > > (net/cvsup-without-gui). There > > are many threads on the mailing lists with detailed information on how > > to cvsup your ports tree and rebuild your INDEX. > > Will doing it that way require all the compiling? Not necessarily. If you run portupgrade with "-P" it will attempt to use packages wherever it can find them, and install from ports where it cannot find a package. "-PP" will _only_ use packages, however it will then fail if it cannot find a package and you would then need to fetch the package yourself manually. The way it sounds like you would be using it you'd want to use "-P", but I'd recommend reading the man page for portupgrade. Packages are nice for the speed you can install them with, but can be much harder to deal with the dependencies unless you use something like portupgrade (which is much more useful after you've got what you want installed and want to keep it all up to date). -Mark