What's a "good" way to handle installation of conflicting ports?

[Miroslav Lachman]

David Wolfskill wrote:
> I've been asked to come up with at least an interim approach --
> that can be implemented within a few days -- to allow the SAs at
> my new job to install conflicting ports on the same machine.
> 
> I can think of some approaches, but I'd prefer to use one that doesn't
> suck too much, and that doesn't impede the transition to something better.
> I would also like to continue to be able to make use of the FreeBSD
> "ports" system, and be able to take advantage of the ports collection,
> such as dependency-tracking.
> 
> Their (the SAs) stated preferred approach is to use GNU stow
> (sysutils/stow), though I've not used it previously, and I'm not
> quite clear on just how that would work in practice -- and still provide
> the benefits of the FreeBSD "ports" system as mentioned above.  (They
> use it for the Linux machines; not sure about the Solaris machines.)
> 
> The catalyst for the exercise is that we have some pools of machines
> for developers to use; some of the developers wish to use
> editors/xemacs; some wish to use editors/emacs -- on the same machine.
> (Given the requirement, it's OK for the affected folks to need to adjust
> search, library, and man paths.)
> 
> (I haven't been in the new position long enough to know why folks can't
> just each use their own desktop/workstations, configured however each
> one sees fit.  Even so, I suppose that there might be a developer out
> there who might want conflicting ports on his dektop -- I've had that
> request before ... or rather, a request that implied that:  One of the
> developers at a previous place of employment was distressed when he
> determined that he was unable to install every port in the ports
> collection on his desktop machine.  In that case, his local disk storage
> gave out before he ran into the "conflicts" issue, but I'm sure that
> would have come up eventually.)

And what if someone wants more operating systems on one machine...

I recommend you jails and run those conflicting applications in jail(s).
Conflicting ports are... conflicting :) And even if you change Makefiles 
or use another PREFIX you could have some problems.

Miroslav Lachman