Ports system quality

[RW]

On Thu, 01 Sep 2011 23:47:40 +0200
Michal Varga wrote:

> On Thu, 2011-09-01 at 04:23 -0500, Mark Linimon wrote:

> > In that case, you should not be updating that rapidly.
> 
> I've covered that aspect earlier in the discussion. There is no option
> to 'upgrade less rapidly', as at any single point in time, there is
> *always* something that just hit the tree moments before. 

During a port's freeze or slush, maintainers are very careful about
what's updated. If you only update during those periods there's very
little risk of problems, and your packages will still be more
up-to-date than in some Linux distros.

> This would
> require all ports users always perfectly know every single port in
> their systems and have detailed knowledge about what exactly every
> single dependency does, affects, and when it's safe to upgrade this
> or that, and how soon to do it after a particular (and every single)
> commit.

You can still reduce the probability significantly. You can never
reduce risk to zero. 

Personally, I don't recognise  what you are saying. Over the last few
years my desktop pc has fluctuated between 800 and 1400 installed
ports, and upgrading has been very smooth.