Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2012 13:12:38 -0400 From: "b. f." <bf1783@googlemail.com> To: freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.org Cc: Erich Dollansky <erich@alogreentechnologies.com> Subject: Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD? Message-ID: <CAGFTUwOAKp2wWm=42Y5wBMpVytYXQtmJ-gx4rVtGvGRKWGg6iw@mail.gmail.com>
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> On 03 June 2012 PM 5:42:55 Adam Strohl wrote: > > On 6/3/2012 17:24, Etienne Robillard wrote: > > I feel like this thread is grossly overstating how often ports are > > broken which is super rare in my experience. Proposing a version'd ports > > tree seems like a bad-practice-encouraging-solution to a problem that > > doesn't really exist [in my experience]. > > > do a simple thing. Install a naked 8.3, 9.0 or 10.0 on a fresh hard disk. Get then the ports tree and start compiling X. > > I did not get a running system since at least 2007 when I did this. There was always at least one manual intervention needed. > > I did this the last time in the first week of May. > > Yes, I know how to fix this. Yes, I reported things like this at the beginning. After getting always the answer that it is working on my machine, I stopped reporting it. > It is difficult to know how to respond to these anecdotes -- we don't know how many and what kind of problems you encountered, what you did when you performed these builds, and how you went about reporting the problems -- all of which can make a big difference in the outcome. I will only say that, apart from occasional disruptions, it is usually possible now to build commonly-used ports with default options on amd64 and i386 in controlled builds without incident. And the numbers from the FreeBSD package-building cluster support this: http://pointyhat.freebsd.org/errorlogs/packagestats.html http://portsmon.FreeBSD.org/chartsandgraphs/brokenpercents.html On a live system, or for a custom build, I have had to make occasional changes (or have chosen to) -- but again I have found that it is usually possible to keep several hundred ports in reasonably good working order, even with weekly updates, without intervening too often. Someone who was more conservative -- avoids frequent updates, especially during major changes; backs-up packages; checks the mailing lists before updating; etc. -- shouldn't encounter too many problems. But if you are not prepared to make occasional changes, then I do not know why you are building from source, especially on a live system, instead of using binary packages. If you don't wish to use packages produced on the FreeBSD cluster, then it is not too hard to use a tinderbox or pkgng to produce your own, or get someone to do it for you. With regard to your request for a versioned Ports trees -- well, we have had that for about 18 years, since the Ports tree is kept under version control in CVS, and you are free to check out snapshots using anonymous CVS or CVSup -- all you have to do is specify a tag or date spec, as described in several places -- csup(1), cvs(1), the FreeBSD Handbook, etc. You can even get per-delta granularity via ctm(1), and I'd guess that there is a way to do it using rsync, too. And if you don't like CVS, then you can import the repository into another VCS. So it has always been possible to roll back to earlier versions of the ports tree without too much trouble. What is more difficult, and what is unlikely to happen soon, because we don't have enough manpower and computing resources, is to maintain multiple versions of the tree that are selectively updated. But I suspect that it would be less trouble for you to just work to solve problems with the current Ports tree than to try to do this yourself. And you are, of course, free to use FreeBSD with other packaging systems, like pkgsrc. Or to use one of the FreeBSD hybrids produced by Gentoo, Debian, et al., with their respective packaging systems. Using FreeBSD does not mean that you have to use FreeBSD Ports, although this may be a good choice for you. As far as your example from your other message about having to combine a png update with work over the course of a weekend -- I don't know why you would be fooling around with an update of your Ports tree or your installed ports while working under a tight deadline, but if you have backups, you should be able to recover from most problems fairly quickly. b.
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