The ports are really funcional?

[RW]

On Tue, 1 Nov 2011 07:28:18 +0100
Polytropon wrote:

> On Tue, 01 Nov 2011 06:08:42 -0700, perryh at pluto.rain.com wrote:
> > My experience is exactly the opposite.  The biggest problem I've
> > had with ports came from trying to follow the recommended approach
> > of updating the tree after installing, before trying to build
> > anything.

It depends. If you plan on updating infrequently then sticking with
the well tested release tree is sensible. The problem is that there's a
lot of pent-up changes that go into the tree immediately after a
release. A lot of new user will fall into the trap of doing an
initial install from the release tree (usually via packages), and then
they pull in months of changes and are faced with a major update. I
did that with Gentoo and made a mess of it; and it's the reason I  moved
on to FreeBSD.


> This is a _conditional_ suggestion. For those who follow
> a -STABLE branch, using a continuously updated ports tree,
> in combination with updating the OS and the installed
> applications, might sound more interesting than the
> opposite approach: ...

It's not an either or. It perfectly sensible to use a RELENG branch and
use up-to-date-ports. Unless you actually need a specific MFC'ed update,
like a driver, tracking stable is extra risk and hassle for no
significant benefit.