Re: pkg upgrade with inverting match?

> On Mar 19, 2026, at 6:21 PM, vermaden <vermaden@interia.pl> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Temat: Re: pkg upgrade with inverting match?
> Data: 2026-03-19 17:41
> Nadawca: "Miroslav Lachman" &lt;000.fbsd@quip.cz>
> Adresat: "Paul Mather" &lt;paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu>; 
> DW: "Nikos Vassiliadis" &lt;nvass@gmx.com>; "vermaden" &lt;vermaden@interia.pl>; "freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.org" &lt;freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.org>; 
> 
>>> On 19/03/2026 14:42, Paul Mather wrote:
>>> On Mar 19, 2026, at 7:29 am, Miroslav Lachman &lt;000.fbsd@quip.cz>
>>> wrote:
>> 
>> [...]
>> 
>>>> First and most important (at least for me) would be a clear
>>>> separation of base system upgrades from 3rd packages,
>>>> without having to enter 40-character-long arguments.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> The "pkg" command allows you to define aliases in pkg.conf.
>>> So, if you wanted to save on typing, you could, say, define
>>> "base-upgrade" and "ports-upgrade" aliases to restrict
>>> "pkg upgrade" to just the appropriate repositories.
>> 
>> Yes, and everyone will fix it locally, each in their own way,
>> so every computer will have a different command to achieve
>> the same result. What an amazing time we live in.
>> 
>> I still don't think it's a good idea to combine base system
>> updates and package upgrades into a single command by
>> default. Now even something as simple as patch level
>> security base update can completely break user's desktop
>> if package upgrade runs at the same time and repository 
>> happens to be missing such important packages as Firefox,
>> Thunderbird, KDE / Plasma, etc.
>> (missing packages that pkg upgrade then uninstalls from
>> the local machine — I see this problem far too often)
>> 
>> Kind regards
>> Miroslav Lachman
> 
> 
> 
> I was proposing the same idea since long time ago:
> 
> 1.
> Separate pkgbase(8) command that will only manipulate
> FreeBSD 'Base System' and with SQLite database in the
> /var/db/pkgbase/ directory.
> 
> 2.
> Separate pkg(8) command that will only manipulate
> FreeBSD '3rd Party Software' and with SQLite database in
> the /var/db/pkg/ directory.
> 
> ... but seems that is just not wanted.

This sort of thing is perfect.

Side effect is the tool used to update the system as a whole gets its own manpage, which can then include some general information for new users on how the overall update process works.

Another thing I enjoy about freebsd-update is the auto-snapshot if you're running zfs on root, I assume that goes away with pkgbase? (please, nobody tell me I can just snapshot it myself)

Charles 


> 
> 
> 
> Regards,
> vermaden
> 
>