Re: changing from pkgbase to regularbase

On Sat, Nov 22, 2025 at 01:35:41AM +0000, Lexi Winter wrote:

>probably by making the warning more difficult to override...

A retrograde step IMO. The warning was sufficient to prevent 
installkernel-by-accident. Which I think was the goal. Accidental 
foot-shooting. There is no need IMO for further guardrails when
the goal in this case was to move back to a traditional system.

>there is no supported method to "depkgbasify" a system.

IMO there should be.

>the correct method to not use pkgbase is to not select pkgbase when
>installing the system.

People change their minds. From an immediate "oops" to a repurposing
of the installation further along the road.

Just about everything within FreeBSD can be changed post-installation.
Why this issue with pkgbase?

>an unofficial and unsupported, but functional, workaround is to install
>the system with pkgbase, then immediately run "rm -rf /var/db/pkg"
>before installing any ports, which will leave you with a system mostly
>identical to a distribution set install.  you will need to manually
>bootstrap etcupdate after doing this, since pkgbase doesn't install the
>etcupdate data.

That's good to know. It'd be useful to have this in the handbook
somewhere.
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