Reducing the size of the ports tree (brainstorm v2)

[Chris H]

On Thu, 06 Nov 2014 22:26:07 -0600 Mark Felder <feld at FreeBSD.org> wrote

> On Thu, Nov 6, 2014, at 03:24, Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
> > 
> > I'm not sure what you mean here.
> > I've systems where I install 99% of packages
> > from official repo servers, and then rebuild
> > 1% from ports where the default options are
> > no good for me. Is this not supported?
> > Or do you mean something else?
> > 
> 
> You're treading dangerous ground unless you can be sure your ports tree
> svn checkout matches the checkout that was used to build the public
> packages. An example would be a situation where there was a library bump
> and your ports and packages don't match and now you have some binaries
> which don't work. If you have problems and you are using ports and
> packages mixed you will not find much sympathy in my experience.
> 
> Bapt has mentioned a desire for tracking packages built from ports and
> making this much easier to support by having "pkg upgrade" detect the
> need to rebuild the port with your custom options and automatically
> updating the ports tree and building. This would be a supported process.
> I think this sounds like a fantastic way to solve this problem for the
> masses.
Doesn't pkg(8) already provide the means to tell you what packages
depend on what? I try to avoid pkg(8) as much as possible. But I'm
quite sure I was able to ascertain what belonged to what. Last time
I had the need, and looked up the incantation, in the man pages.
I also find that many choose the route of mixing ports, and packages,
and do it w/o incident. Including myself. I rarely choose packages.
But if I'm really pressed, and a port build fails w/o foreseeable
remedy. I might take the shortcut, and install a package. Marking
it as "needs to be replaced by the port version". This has worked
nearly w/o incident. So I find it fairly odd to hear so much hubub
about mixing ports, and packages. Anyone who keeps reasonable
inventory of their system, will keep things in "sync". If their
careless to do otherwise. Mixing ports, and packages are likely
one of the least of their troubles. :)

All the best.

--Chris

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