Ports vs. Installing By Hand

[Jim Mock]

On Monday, April 21, 2003, at 02:04  PM, Brian Black wrote:
> Hey guys,
>
> I had a question about the ports and how it registers ports into the 
> database.  I've been told that if I go and get some software from the 
> net say foo.tar.bz and unpack and install correctly, that it will not 
> be registered into the database. Ok, well is there a way to get it 
> registered into the db?

No.  Well, unless you create a port of it.

> also if later that I find out that the software that I downloaded is 
> in the ports, should I use pkg_del and uninstall and use the port or 
> leave it alone.  sorry if its a newbie question. I have not found much 
> documentation on installing software from the net, and the handbook is
> a little vague in this area.

If you didn't install it from the port or package to begin with, 
pkg_delete isn't going to do you much good.

> I guess my goal is to be able to install and keep track and possibly 
> use portupgrade to upgrade all my installed software.

Then you want install things by using either the ports tree or 
packages.  If you install things yourself without using either method, 
you're pretty much on your own as far as updates and getting help with 
something is concered.

- jim

-- 
- jim mock  mij@{soupnazi|opendarwin}.org  jim@{bsdnews|FreeBSD}.org -
- editor in chief, BSD News: http://bsdnews.org  http://soupnazi.org -