A packages question.

[doug at safeport.com]

Well actually its looking better and better. What's the worst that can happen? I
have done 'pkg_delete -a' now several times because removing one of the packages
for XFree86 4.3 and replacing it with the newer version removes xterm. While twm
is not my window manager of choice, it is better than the console.

pkg_add -f -r package-name does not force the installation of 2nd level
dependencies. So installing kde 3.<{anything -gt 1}> means finding all the
dependencies such as imake, expat, ..., qt, ... and installing or forcing them
before going after kdelib and then kdebase which must be done in this order
(maybe not if all the lower level dependencies are met).

I am going to try this just just for grins even though I suspect this will fail
and I will drop back for 4.10 because of one or more of the following
possibilities:

   1) Xorg and XFree 86 have (inadvertently?) dropped support for the video
      card used by my laptop. Due to its age, I suspect this is not a
      pressing problem. To report the problem I need to reinstall one or
      both to provide the information that either fails without an error.

   2) Some where in the maturation of 5.x, the C++ compiler changes have
      probably introduced changes in the BPI (if not the API) that may make it
      impossible to run X-based packages without moving forward. This is
      the supposition I think I am testing by trying to use kde 3.4 which
      has been built with Xorg.

   3) Buy a new PC is the wrong answer.

   4) building KDE and every other X application on a 400MHz laptop is the wrong
      answer.

All of that was background so I could say this. Perhaps it is time to introduce
branches into the packages tree. The alternative (IMO) is to require that only
packages that were on the CD set when you burned or purchased it can be
installed. Like #3 above I believe this to be the wrong answer because its
greatly limits the population that will use FreeBSD as a workstation.

After re-reading this, please do not consider this a rant. I love FreeBSD and
will solve my problem one way or the other, help now in the form of ideas would
be nice, but worst case, evenutally I will buy a newer PC.

The idea here was to to float the idea of a branch in the package tree.


On Fri, 1 Oct 2004 doug at safeport.com wrote:

> thanks - I will try it this way
>
> On Fri, 1 Oct 2004, Eric Kjeldergaard wrote:
>
> > While this idea may seem good on the surface, it's really a very bad idea
> > (and I speak from experience) to hand-modify your package database.  What
> > you /should/ do instead is force the addition of the packages.  `pkg_add -f
> > <packageName>`
> >
> >
> > On Fri, 1 Oct 2004 22:16:45 -0400 (EDT), doug at safeport.com
> > <doug at safeport.com> wrote:
> > > Neither XFree86 4.4 nor Xorg supports the video on my laptop while XFree86
> > > 4.3 works.
> > >
> > > I want to set up the package database to say XFree 4.4 is installed to see
> > > if I can install the latest packages. Does anyone know that this will not
> > > work? Also if I could get some pointer on how to modify the package db or
> > > where this may be documented
> > >
>


_____
Douglas Denault
http://www.safeport.com
doug at safeport.com
Voice: 301-469-8766
  Fax: 301-469-0601