pkg config options: is this a thing?

[Matthew Seaman]

On 28/09/2014 23:42, paul beard wrote:
> I have been using pkg pretty exclusively since I have a hardware
> failure and need to rebuild an existing FreeBSD system. It's now
> running in VirtualBox on an iMac(!) and works just fine.
> 
> But I have been running into some issues with pkgs that have config
> options or variables at build time that I can't or don't know how to
> manage. My most recent example was installing cups and it's various
> components and finding that the ssl libs to manage the web UI were not
> installed or linked properly. I ended up building it all from source
> to make it work properly. I was having bad flashbacks of my days with
> another more well-known open source OS with it's myriad incompatible
> distros and packages, which was one of the reasons I tried and have
> stuck with FreeBSD since release 4.11.
> 
> If there is something I am missing please advise. If it were up to me,
> I would like to see a config screen pop up, just as I see with 'make
> config' and the choices made there inform the pkg I request and
> install. Ideally, you don't want more libraries or binaries than you
> truly need for security reasons, to say nothing of sanity. And of
> course, you also want stuff to work properly.

Yes, this is a problem with using binary pkgs at the moment.  pkg(8) is
very much a work in progress still.  Plans are afoot to introduce
measures -- sub-packages and flavours -- that should mean you don't get
stuck with packages that are using the wrong options or that have
undesirable dependencies quite so often.

However right now, the advice is to compile your own packages if what is
available on the repos isn't suitable.  You can just build stuff out of
ports, but certainly if you have several FreeBSD machines to manage, and
maybe even if you only have just one, consider trying out poudriere to
generate your own package repository.  It's easier than you think and
once you've a poudriere build system set up, it's almost as convenient
as just installing pkgs from the official pkg repositories.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.

PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey
JID: matthew at infracaninophile.co.uk

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