Re: PKGBASE Removes FreeBSD Base System Feature

On 8 Aug 2025, at 14:42, Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@FreeBSD.org> wrote:
> 
> Tomek CEDRO <tomek@cedro.info> writes:
>> [...] from user perspective these changes were easy to adapt to :-)
> 
> So will this one.

Let’s remember the thing that started this entire thread: `pkg delete -af`

This is an *incredibly* stupid thing to do.  Long before pkg came along, I did the equivalent of this and managed to lock myself out of a headless box by doing this because I forgot that I was using the ports version of openssh instead of the base one.

There are lots of other ways that deleting all packages will break your system.  This is why `pkg delete` *shows you a list of packages that it will delete*, whether you specify `-a` or a single package.

If you add `-f`, you are explicitly saying ‘I know what I am doing, I don’t need to see the list of packages, I know exactly what is happening’.

To all of the people worrying about this: In the decade since pkg was introduced, how many times have you *ever* run `pkg delete -af`?  My guess, for 99% of users, the answer is zero.  It’s like running rm -rf without checking what’s in a directory first.

This entire long thread is because someone did a large destructive operation, using a tool that defaults to telling them in detail what it will do and giving them a chance to stop, and intentionally put the tool in the mode where it didn’t do that.

If that’s the most likely way of accidentally breaking a FreeBSD system, we’re in an amazing position.  I doubt it’s even in the top 100.

David