how to start over with respect to ports

[Scott I. Remick]

--- Jason Trickett <jstrickett at cogeco.ca> wrote:

> Won't this get rid of binary packages too? I want to keep my gnome 
> system et al. - I just want to get rid of any port(s) that I ended up 
> compiling/installing.

Eh... it's a feature, not a bug :)

Seriously... you're up against one of the nice things about the ports
system. Whether you install as a port you compile yourself, or a
pre-compiled package... either way, it gets registered in your list of
installed packages the same way and is treated and dealt-with the same from
there on in. There is no distinction.

You can delete /usr/ports if you don't want all the stub files anymore
(necessary to install as a port), or you can use portsclean -CDD to clean up
leftovers from the compile process. You can also remove the contents of
/usr/ports/distfiles to remove all the downloaded sources. But installed is
installed, whether it be from packages or ports.

I'm sure if I have something wrong here, someone will correct me shortly. My
own questions show how green I am. :) Just trying to help somewhere where I
THINK I can.