The GNOME meta-port

[Joe Marcus Clarke]

I wanted to respond to all the mails on this thread with why gnome@ has
done what they've done with the GNOME meta-ports.

First, and someone already touched on this issue, what is a meta-port? 
A meta-port is something aimed at newbies to get them up and running
with a "something" quickly, out-of-the-box.  As these newbies become
more acquainted with FreeBSD, they begin to say, "you know, I don't
really need package X.  Let me uninstall the meta-port, and package X." 
As they begin to really get the feel of make(1) and the ports system,
they may decide, "I'm building this suite a lot, but all I need are
packages X, Y, and Z.  Let me build a meta-port just for those."  Or,
"Let me simply install X, Y, and Z."

Let's look at a fair example.  I don't think it's fair to compare
x11/gnome2 to lang/php4 since php4 is a real, working port, and gnome2
is simply a meta-port stub.  Also, XFree86, and quakeforge aren't fair
comparisons since they only have a few dependencies.  I want to look at
misc/instant-workstation.  This meta-port has 124 dependencies (compared
to gnome2's 122), and only one WITH_/WITHOUT_ knob for ghostscript. 
This meta-port was designed by Greg Lehey to install all the ports he
thought makes a good instant workstation.  It's quite KDE-centric.  But
wait, I want my workstation to have GNOME.  Greg, can you add a knob for
GNOME?  Greg will come back and say, "don't install this port.  It's not
for you."  He's right.  As an advanced user, I know what I want on my
workstation.  I want my set of GNOME 2 bits, gaim, rhythmbox, galeon,
etc.  This meta-port simply represents Greg's opinion, where as gnome2
represents the GNOME desktop as envisioned by gnome.org.

My point is that meta-ports are geared more toward newbies.  Advanced
users can bypass the meta-port, and install only the bits they want. 
Really advanced users (or admins doing bulk installations) can build
their own meta-ports to easy the task of reinstallation.

Marcus

-- 
Joe Marcus Clarke
FreeBSD GNOME Team	::	marcus at FreeBSD.org
gnome at FreeBSD.org
FreeNode / #freebsd-gnome
http://www.FreeBSD.org/gnome

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