Items exist in ports, but not as packages.

[Bill Moran]

Paul Richards <paul.richards at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> I've been trying to install a few packages using 'pkg_add -r' but I
> have found that there are a few which only exist as ports, and not
> packages.  The main one which I am missing is 'vtk-tcl'.
> 
> Is it generally the case that the precompiled packages are not always
> available when the ports are?  According to freshports.org I should be
> able to use 'pkg_add -r' for vtk-tcl.

Pretty much.  There's no guarantee that all ports are available as
packages.

> Unfortunately I am only allowed (by the girlfriend) to play with
> FreeBSD on an old 1 gig disk and so I don't have the space to install
> ports.  Are there any other sources of precompiled packages which I
> could use?  Is there a way to install just the portion of the ports
> tree which I need?

You can work with an incomplete ports tree sometimes.  The ports tree
is heavily dependent on the fact that make can jump to different
directories to install dependencies and such ... that being said,
I have been able to use partial ports trees in the past.  It's a
bit of a gamble.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com