Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2026 10:26:32 -0800 From: "Pat Maddox" <pat@patmaddox.com> To: "Miroslav Lachman" <000.fbsd@quip.cz>, "Anthony Pankov" <anthony.pankov@yahoo.com>, hackee <h4ckee@proton.me>, "freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org" <freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: FreBSD pkgbase vs distsets. Message-ID: <b0b4da1b-7137-460a-bc2f-5b9021a1426b@app.fastmail.com> In-Reply-To: <07af999d-3c7b-4fe2-8ed2-a37cf89b663b@quip.cz> References: <0iqhe92aheNJohSnhh8-hXkXhQsaRG4D64nLTlTSIPgd6Iit07IwlMwmn-mIS-Qtp9KuZElphybTlYDIVTUDcVGpHWaUbQVGPKt53NSL5Jg=@proton.me> <1678741437.20260206163514@yahoo.com> <07af999d-3c7b-4fe2-8ed2-a37cf89b663b@quip.cz>
index | next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail
On Fri, Feb 6, 2026, at 6:46 AM, Miroslav Lachman wrote: > On 06/02/2026 14:35, Anthony Pankov wrote: >> Hello hackee, >> >> Friday, February 6, 2026, 4:06:36 PM, you wrote: >> >>> Hello guys! >> >>> As far as I understand, FreeBSD 16 is planned to drop distsets support and move entirely to pkgbase. I am writing to ask you to reconsider this decision. >>> I maintain a small FreeBSD-based project for my own hardware ( for amd64 platform, code can be seen here: https://github.com/h4ckee/CoreBSD ), that depends heavily on distsets, and migrating it to a pkgbase-only model would be highly inconvenient. I build custom compact ISO image based on that code. My equipment is for personal use, laptops and a server, but I'm hoping to create a small storage solution based on the compact FreeBSD distribution and may use it on my employer's equipment. There are also other companies and projects that use FreeBSD to build their own distributions—such as appliances and embedded systems—that similarly rely on distsets. I would like to propose keeping distsets intact while continuing to offer pkgbase as an alternative for those who wish to use it, in the same way it is done in the FreeBSD 15 release. I hope you will consider this request favorably. >> >> Can you describe more precisely what you are worry about? As of https://github.com/h4ckee/CoreBSD you build your system from sources and I don't fully understand what can prevent you to do the same later. > > My point of view is slightly different. For me for the past 25+ years > the main strong feature of FreeBSD was separation of the base system > from the 3rd party packages. I could do anything with cd > /usr/ports/cat/port & make install, portmaster, portupgrade, or pkg_add, > or pkg install, or pkg upgrade and I was sure not to break anything in > the base system. I can upgrade ports / packages independently on base > system. I can install security patches to base without touching 3rd > party packages or vice versa. But if I understand the concept of pkgbase > right, there is one command to do both - pkg upgrade. I really don't > like the concept of having one command (even if with different args) to > maintain both. It's very easy to mistype some args and break something. > But to mistype "cd /usr/src & make installxxxx" or "freebsd-update > upgrade -R xxx" instead of "pkg upgrade" is very rare I think. > > Therefore, if the base package is truly necessary, I would prefer to > maintain it using a command other than "pkg." > > Best regards > Miroslav Lachman I too had done a lot of scripting with dist tarballs and was skeptical of pkgbase. One challenge with suggestions to use separate commands is that afaik pkg doesn’t really know or care what you’re installing or from where. You have a list of repos, they have packages available, you choose which packages to install from which repos. One thing that should be possible - I haven’t tested in this context but have used the behavior plenty elsewhere - is to disable the FreeBSD-base repo in your config. Then explicitly pass the repo when you want to upgrade, i.e. `pkgbase upgrade -r FreeBSD-base`. pkg will not update disabled repos or use them for install / upgrade in normal use, but will with explicit repo. This way you maintain the basic workflow of upgrading third-party packages separately. fwiw I had an aha with pkgbase when working on release process and installing and uninstalling CURRENT and 14.3 on a dataset in cycles… that was pretty cool. Pathome | help
Want to link to this message? Use this
URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?b0b4da1b-7137-460a-bc2f-5b9021a1426b>