alternative options for ports

[Jose M Rodriguez]

El Sábado, 16 de Octubre de 2004 13:18, Michael Nottebrock escribió:
> On Saturday 16 October 2004 01:14, Parv wrote:
> > I suppose i had to wade in sooner or later ...
> >
> >
> > in message <200410152156.16113.michaelnottebrock at gmx.net>,
> > wrote Michael Nottebrock thusly...
> >
> > > On Friday 15 October 2004 16:15, Erik Trulsson wrote:
> > > > I almost never use binary packages but build everything from
> > > > source. (I.e. I would probably barely notice if all binary
> > > > packages suddenly disappeared never to return.)
> >
> > Well, i certainly be mightily ticked off (due to lack of *some* of
> > the packages) when i lack the resources to build a humongous port
> > like Open Office.
> >
> > > I realise that there is a fraction of ports users which don't
> > > care about packages at all ...  but they are not the primary
> > > target audience of ports, as I pointed out before.
> >
> > Michael N, do you imply in above quote that FreeBSD ports system's
> > main purpose is to provide packages?
>
> No, it's _one_ main purpose. Unlike portage or certain big rpm-based
> Linux distributions, freebsd ports does not lean towards either
> source or binary. This implies however both the package and 'the cd
> portdir; make; make install' of installing a port need to be taken
> into consideration when creating and maintaining a port. Packages are
> NOT a second class byproduct of ports which are nice when they are
> nice and if they're not, it doesn't matter anyway. If the package of
> a certain port sucks, the port sucks, it's as simple as that.

I think this need some comments.  There're binary oriented ports (well, 
better package) systems.  But not source oriented package system.

You can find binary oriented package systems like openpkg (and, in 
general, rpm systems)  that work 'directly from sources'.

To explain this, openpkg guides teach you to use srpm (source rpm), not 
rpm (binary).

What really makes a ports/package system 'binary' oriented is that there 
is a strict model of the final package.  There isn't options on a 
binary oriented package system.

On OpenBSD, flavors register near but different binary packages.  But 
none of these have options.  Only the main flavour.

IMHO,  the most interesting feature of OpenBSD ports and rpm that maybe 
imported are 'build subproducts'.

That is, be able to generates several packages form just one port 
build/install.

But even this is by no mean a trivial task.

--
  josemi