Packages available for different FreeBSD versions

[Andrew Gould]

On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Chris Stankevitz<cstankevitz at toyon.com> wrote:
> Chuck,
>
> Thank you for your help.  I have two questions:
>
> Chuck Swiger wrote:
>>
>> Ports are not branched-- there is no STABLE or CURRENT for ports.  The
>> same ports tree can be used on 6.x, 7.x, and 8-CURRENT.
>
> 1. With what is the STABLE/CURRENT tag associated?
> a) "core operating system version number"
> b) the ports collection
> c) something else

Ports is a system created to install and manage third party
applications that are separate from the core operating system.
Although they are separate, it is good to have them in sync so that
they are compiled using the same libraries, etc.  Therefore, there is
an attempt to associate packages (compiled versions of ports) with the
version of the operating system upon which they were compiled.

RELEASE, STABLE and CURRENT, refer to the core system.  RELEASE refers
to the version of the operating system that was released with release
notes, etc.  When you update the core operating system, you can use
cvsup to download changes to the source code.  STABLE and CURRENT tell
cvsup what set of changes you want to download.  STABLE is what it
sounds like.  The changes include patches related to security issues
and bugs.  New features may be included, but are considered too risky
or experimental.  CURRENT will put you on the bleeding edge.

>
>>> What are the repercussions of never updating the "core operating system
>>> version number"?
>>
>> Well, you'll miss ongoing security updates and improvements to the system.
>
> 2. I thought security updates and improvements to the system would arrive
> via the ports mechanism.  What kinds of things are not updated via ports?
>  (My experience is with Gentoo where everything is updated via portage and
> there is no "core operating system version number").

This is addressed above.  I would add, though, that the cvsup
mechanism can be used to download updates to the ports system and
documentation, in addition to changes to the core system.

>
> Thanks again,
>
> Chris
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