More on Failure to reinstall Gnome2

[Michal Varga]

Hi Scott,
first, I cannot comment much on your specific ghostscript9 issue, as I
don't even have (and as far as I know never had) ghostscript9 installed.

I do have Gnome2, of course, but I have no idea where your ghostscript9
dependency comes from, as I don't normally install the 'full' Gnome2
metaport (hint: it's terrible, if only because it pulls in such
monstrosities as deskutils/tomboy, and some slightly less offending
ones, but that's too much anyway).

$ pkg_info | grep ghostscript
ghostscript8-8.71_8 Ghostscript 8.x PostScript interpreter

$ pkg_info | grep gnome2
gnome2-lite-2.32.1  The "meta-port" of the GNOME desktop slimmed down 


Note that this part doesn't make much sense:

> cd /usr/ports/x11/gnome2
> make clean
> 
> Again, stopped here with error from ghostscript9 build

Make clean won't run any build targets, so you probably left out
something here.


> So I tried the more extreme solution. I rm'ed /usr/ports and then
> csup'ed it.

This is not very important part, but again just a quick note - there is
nothing extreme on removing /usr/ports, as it's basically just a huge
static database of ports makefiles and patches. While it might be
considered "unusual" purely from a bandwidth standpoint, wiping out
whole /usr/ports in case there is a possibility of pollution (e.g. from
leftover custom patches) is a pretty normal (and safe) thing to do.
There is nothing magical on /usr/ports alone and redownloading a good
copy is always a good practice in recovery situations as yours.

So then, back to your ghostscript9 issue. Are you sure you actually need
gs9 and/or the port(s) that pull it as a dependency in the first place?
Maybe the [much lighter and cleaner] x11/gnome2-lite metaport would
suffice to your needs? You can always install the rest of the stuff that
-lite doesn't include, one by one.

m.

-- 
Michal Varga,
Stonehenge (Gmail account)