some simple Questions

[Schiz0]

On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 2:09 PM, Schiz0 <schiz0phrenic21 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 1:32 PM, Nex6 <myndshell at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > Hi all,
>  >
>  >  I am new to Freebsd tho, long time Linux/Windows user.
>  >
>  >  install software:
>  >  seems the way to to this is pkg_add -r software-name
>
>  There are two ways to install software. Using packages (pkg_add) or
>  using ports. See my response below for details on how to use ports.
>
>
>  >  system update:
>  >  still not sure? tho this is probly something really simple, seems more the
>  >  one way to do it.
>
>  FreeBSD comes with the source code for the entire system. So, to
>  upgrade the system, you need to do two things:
>  1. Checkout the source code for whatever update you want to use
>  2. Compile and install that source code.
>
>  For the first one, see:
>  http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvsup.html
>
>  For the second one, see:
>  http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/makeworld.html
>
>
>  >  main difference between packages and ports?
>
>  Packages are pre-compiled binaries (which are created from the ports).
>  The ports collection contains small Makefiles. When you install from
>  ports, it does the following:
>  1. Downloads the source code from whatever website it is hosted on.
>  2. Apply the FreeBSD patches/upgrades/whatever
>  3. Compile that source code
>  4. Install the binaries to the proper location
>
>  >
>  >  thanks in adavnce.
>  >
>

Ah, something I forgot to add.

The only reason the packages system exist is basically to bypass the
compile time. For example, it would take a long time to compile things
such as OpenOffice, xorg, or KDE. So instead of waiting that long, you
can just install the pre-compiled package and it's ready to go. You
don't have to wait for it to compile.