From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 12 10:09:19 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 167BE1065672 for ; Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:09:19 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jmc-freebsd@milibyte.co.uk) Received: from ptb-relay01.plus.net (ptb-relay01.plus.net [212.159.14.212]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9BB468FC17 for ; Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:09:18 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jmc-freebsd@milibyte.co.uk) Received: from [84.92.153.232] (helo=kestrel.milibyte.co.uk) by ptb-relay01.plus.net with esmtp (Exim) id 1JZNta-00030z-Cf; Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:09:14 +0000 Received: by kestrel.milibyte.co.uk with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1JZNtY-0000nR-LP; Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:09:13 +0000 From: Mike Clarke To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:09:12 +0000 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.7 References: <20080312091427.GA47661@torus.slightlystrange.org> In-Reply-To: <20080312091427.GA47661@torus.slightlystrange.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200803121009.12536.jmc-freebsd@milibyte.co.uk> X-SA-Exim-Connect-IP: X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: jmc-freebsd@milibyte.co.uk X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No (on kestrel.milibyte.co.uk); SAEximRunCond expanded to false X-Plusnet-Relay: 5abafb372568d358731a443582325199 Subject: Re: Installation X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:09:19 -0000 On Wednesday 12 March 2008, Daniel Bye wrote: > I think it fair to say that most people will use ports to compile and > install software, rather than relying on the packages on the release > ISOs, for the simple reason that the ports tree is a moving target - > the packages included with any particular release are out of date > (as a set, if not individually) quite quickly, because the porters > do a fantastic job of adding new software and updating existing ports. > > So, my suggestion (as an old hack who's been around for almost a > decade ;-) would be to familiarise yourself with the ports tree > and all its magic - you'll probably find yourself using it in > preference to precompiled packages. The handbook is the best place > to start, as ever. I agree that there are advantages in using ports to ensure things are kept up to date but using the packages supplied with the release can be an advantage for a newcomer to FreeBSD. The ports system can be quite daunting until one has become familiar with the system especially if even just one of the ports fails to build. A new user probably won't have the expertise to recognise and fix the cause of the problem. Installing packages from the CD's pretty well ensures that the new user can get a new system up and running without complication. Many new users would prefer a slightly out of date system that works instead of struggling to fix problems in a totally unfamiliar system. When I first started to use FreeBSD I relied on the packages on the CDs, as I gained more familiarity I was much more confident in using ports for the applications that weren't available as precompiled packages. Although I'm now quite comfortable building from ports I still use precompiled packages where they are available because I've got a relatively low powered PC which makes very heavy going with the bigger ports (e.g. gcc, firefox, KDE) -- Mike Clarke