[RFC] NO_INSTALL in meta-ports considered harmful

[Glen Barber]

On Sun, May 10, 2009 at 1:01 PM, Marcin Wisnicki
<mwisnicki+freebsd at gmail.com> wrote:
> Some metaports (like print/cups) use NO_INSTALL.
>
> This will prevent such port from registering its installation in /var/db/
> pkg, which is different behaviour from installing it from prebuilt
> package (where it registers just fine).
>
> IMHO not registering installation makes no sense and serves only to
> confuse users (I've installed cups yet pkg_info claims I didn't!) and
> causes unnecessary differences between software installed from ports vs
> pkgs, which may lead to other unexpected problems (like missing
> RUN_DEPENDS).
>
> Thus I advocate for more uniform handling of ports and packages by
> treating it as a bug and replacing any such use of NO_INSTALL with empty
> do-install target. Maybe even add a note to Porter's Handbook (though I
> see no reference to NO_INSTALL there).
>
> If anyone has some insightfull comments why NO_INSTALL is not evil then
> I'm all ears.
>

I'm not sure if this is the 'right answer', but NO_INSTALL allows the
proper installation of numerous ports from one location (the
meta-port).  An example of this is the misc/instant-server port
(though unmaintained, IIRC).

If you remove the NO_INSTALL line from the Makefile, 'make' thinks
misc/instant-server should be installed, rather than the collection of
ports it is intended to install.

Again, this is my interpretation of it.  If I'm wrong, I gladly accept
corrections to my thinking. :)


-- 
Glen Barber