configuration of ports

[Serge Gagnon]

>>>>> On Mon, 13 Sep 2004, "Bob" == Bob Ababurko wrote:

  Bob> Hello-

Hello Bob

  Bob> I am sure that this must have been asked, so along with my
  Bob> question, I need to know if there is an archive of the ports
  Bob> collection and if so, where can I find it.  Ok, I am really liking
  Bob> the ports collection, being new to freeBSD and all.  But the one
  Bob> thing that gets in the way is my lack of knowledge in being able to
  Bob> configure the installations....either with .configure config files
  Bob> or with compiler switches.  Can someone lead me to a resource that
  Bob> can help me understand how to configure my applications so that I
  Bob> can tweak my ports during installation?

First of all, I think that you must read 
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports-using.html
in order to know how getting the ports tree.

Usually, a port is an already tweaked/configured environnement to build 
adequately for FreeBSD your needed application.

However, sometimes they are some options that you can pass to build your 
port in some or other way. 
Look in the Makefile file in the port that you want to build and find for
WITH_OPTION1
WITH_OPTION2 (it is an example. The real thing resemble: WITH_READLINE or
WITH_GUI)

Now, if there is option2 that you want, just type:
make WITH_OPTION2=YES (depending on what shell you are using but this is 
the common way)
and the port will be build in the way that you want.

They are some other places/things to look for configuring a ports, but 
this is a good start.

-- 
Serge Gagnon <ser_gagnon at sympatico.ca>
Quebec, Qc, Canada