what's the deal with pre-existing packages?

[Tobias Roth]

On Thu, Dec 23, 2004 at 04:14:39PM -0500, daniel wrote:
> i'm new to freebsd, formerly of gentoo and i'm a bit confused with the fact 
> that sendmail is pre-installed when i did a minimal install -- especially 
> when i find that there's 5 sendmail's in ports.  so i have a few questions:

you have to differ between the base install and the ports. roughly speaking,
the FreeBSD base may be compared to the gentoo system packages. but then,
the FreeBSD base is not packages... it's hard to explain.

>  1. is the sendmail that's already there checked for security problems when i
>     run "portaudit -a" or "portupgrade -a"?

yes, portaudit also reports problems with the base system. in addition to
that, reports for the base system sre sent to the security mailinglist.

>  2. what's the difference between the other 5 sendmail's in ports?

the package descriptions will tell you

>  3. if i install a ports sendmail (/usr/ports/mail/sendmail), i then have
>     two copies of it on my machine.  can/should i remove the default installed
>     one?

you can either not start the base sendmail, or have the port installed over
the base installation by using /usr instead of /usr/local as the prefix

>  4. if i do install a ports sendmail, how do i get it to start at boot time?

the same that you start every other daemon from the ports.


most if not all of your questions are answered in the FreeBSD handbook.
also, freebsd-questions might be a better place to ask such things, even
if freebsd-ports is not that bad a pick either :-)

> -- 
> only after the last tree has been cut down
> only after the last river has been poisoned
> only after the last fish has been caught
> only then will you learn that money can't be eaten.
>   - unknown

i have heard that one before... though i can't remember where. google thinks
it's a telling of the cree indians.

cheers, t.