options used to compile packages

[Michael Powell]

David Arendt wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> well I don't actually now which package it was, but I compiled gdm (so
> it should be one of it's dependencies). A compilation resulted in a non
> working gdm (something with pam support not found on execution). Upon
> installing gdm and is dependencies from packages, everything worked
> correctly. Therefore I thought there might be other default options. I
> am sorry that I cannot be more precise, but I tried it 2 months ago, so
> I do not remember exactly. I think I will try it again from scratch with
> latest ports tree and give you more precise information.
> 
[snip]

As you probably know, make config will open a previously saved 
configuration. The first time a port that has options is built you will get 
the options screen where you can select/deselect options. Make config 
recursive will also walk the dependency tree and pull up all the config 
screens for dependencies as well.

These options are saved in /var/db/ports. Each port will have a directory 
containing an 'options' file. Deleting these will remove what make config 
saved and reset it back to as if the port hadn't been built previously with 
the options screen once again appearing. These would be the defaults.

A shotgun approach would be to wipe all of the content from /var/db/ports 
and then it would be like starting from scratch; all ports would present 
default options. Kind of an ugly thing to do, better if you could identify a 
subset and only remove what's needed. Wiping everything will reset your 
entire ports tree to beginning with default options. As a backup you could 
also copy/save the contents of /var/db/ports somewhere else for future 
reference. 

-Mike