Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 13:08:56 -0400 From: Glen Barber <glen.j.barber@gmail.com> To: Marcin Wisnicki <mwisnicki+freebsd@gmail.com> Cc: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: [RFC] NO_INSTALL in meta-ports considered harmful Message-ID: <4ad871310905101008n73d26145h3d81914925aab965@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <gu718o$v5l$1@ger.gmane.org> References: <gu718o$v5l$1@ger.gmane.org>
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On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 1:01 PM, Marcin Wisnicki <mwisnicki+freebsd@gmail.com> wrote: > Some metaports (like print/cups) use NO_INSTALL. > > This will prevent such port from registering its installation in /var/db/ > pkg, which is different behaviour from installing it from prebuilt > package (where it registers just fine). > > IMHO not registering installation makes no sense and serves only to > confuse users (I've installed cups yet pkg_info claims I didn't!) and > causes unnecessary differences between software installed from ports vs > pkgs, which may lead to other unexpected problems (like missing > RUN_DEPENDS). > > Thus I advocate for more uniform handling of ports and packages by > treating it as a bug and replacing any such use of NO_INSTALL with empty > do-install target. Maybe even add a note to Porter's Handbook (though I > see no reference to NO_INSTALL there). > > If anyone has some insightfull comments why NO_INSTALL is not evil then > I'm all ears. > I'm not sure if this is the 'right answer', but NO_INSTALL allows the proper installation of numerous ports from one location (the meta-port). An example of this is the misc/instant-server port (though unmaintained, IIRC). If you remove the NO_INSTALL line from the Makefile, 'make' thinks misc/instant-server should be installed, rather than the collection of ports it is intended to install. Again, this is my interpretation of it. If I'm wrong, I gladly accept corrections to my thinking. :) -- Glen Barber
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