Portmaster general questions and problems

[RW]

On Sun, 26 Dec 2010 11:39:58 -0800
"Ron (Lists)" <rg.lists at rzweb.com> wrote:


> ===>  Checking if devel/libltdl already installed
> ===>   libltdl-2.2.10 is already installed
>       You may wish to ``make deinstall'' and install this port again
>       by ``make reinstall'' to upgrade it properly.
>       If you really wish to overwrite the old port of devel/libltdl
>       without deleting it first, set the variable "FORCE_PKG_REGISTER"
>       in your environment or the "make install" command line.
> *** Error code 1
> 
> Stop in /usr/ports/devel/libltdl.
> 
> ok, so libltdl-2.2.10 is already installed?  Why is that an issue?  
> Why doesn't portmaster just happily skip it since it's already 
> installed?  What am I not understanding here?  Or am I using
> portmaster wrong?


When a port gets built, the ports system looks for and installs any
missing dependencies. As several different ports may satisfy a
dependency the ports system looks for the functionality, a key
executable, library etc, rather than a specific installed package.

The error you see can occur when the port thinks it need to install
a missing dependency port, but that install fails due to an existing
entry in /var/db/pkg. This happens either because the appropriate
files are missing or the port is looking for the wrong thing in the
first place. It may be due to a mistake by the port maintainer or, more
likely, a failure to deal with UPDATING entries correctly.