Ports/Packages Philosophy

[Modulok]

On 5/6/08, Dsiuh Djsids <ewqdsacxz900 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I am interested to know what some of your software installing/updating
> philosophies are regarding ports/packages on either a server or a home
> desktop. For example, how often do you update your software and when you do,
> do you run something like 'portupgrade -a' or individually take care of each
> piece of software?


Upgrades...unless they're very pressing security issues that directly relate
to the well-being of my server, I upgrade as rarely as possible. Upgrading
things has a tendency to break stuff at the most inopportune time. Frankly,
I'm not sure why everyone is so adamant about having the latest updates. If
the program does what I require, I would rather have a more aged version
which has been given time to get the bugs worked out.

As far as building software, I do this as rarely as possible as well. Unless
there is a specific functionality which requires a set of non-default
compiler flags, I use packages. It makes no sense to waste time re-compiling
the same program, with the same compiler options, for the same processor
architecture as has already been done by countless others. For example, if
you ran a lab of 300 identical computers, would you re-compile every program
on each computer? Probably not. If I can get a pre-compiled binary from a
reliable source, I'd rater do that, than sit around all day waiting for
software to build in hopes of benefiting from a few custom build options.

My 2 cents worth.
-Modulok-