A misunderstanding in FreeBSD Handbook

Manolis Kiagias sonic2000gr at gmail.com
Sat Oct 3 09:31:26 UTC 2009


Jan Oppolzer wrote:
> Hello,
>
> in my opinion, there's a little mistake in FreeBSD Handbook in section 24.3 
> Portsnap: A Ports Collection Update Tool [1] which can confuse mainly 
> newcomers in FreeBSD.
>
> If portsnap was run previously then after 'portsnap fetch' should be executed 
> 'portsnap update' (as noted in 'man portsnap') instead of 'portsnap extract' 
> which is said in the handbook.
>
> At the end there's written to execute 'portsnap fetch update' to run both 
> processes consecutively, but it was stated to run 'fetch' and then 'extract'. 
> Which is misleading.
>
> I guess it'd be a good idea to mention differences in "extract" and "update" or 
> at least mention they exist and to read manual page for more information which 
> one to use and when.
>
> [1] http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/updating-upgrading-
> portsnap.html
>
>
> Best regards,
> Jan Oppolzer
>   

Hi Jan,

You are right, the Handbook does not differentiate between extract
(which should be used the first time only) and update (to be used on
subsequent runs). I'll  have a try at rewording this today to get it in
line with the man page.

Thanks!



More information about the freebsd-doc mailing list