synth install ... builds but does not always install named packages

[Jonathan Chen]

On 16 September 2017 at 09:01, Thomas Mueller <mueller6722 at twc.com> wrote:
> Some of the packages not installed are widespread buil;d dependencies, such as nasm, and are better installed than rebuilt or temporarily reinstalled every time.

synth doesn't rebuild build-dependencies if it isn't required. It
stores the dependancies as a packages in the local package repository
and unpacks it for each build. In fact, there is no need to install
build dependancies on your local system, as it will *never* get used
by synth, as synth uses a clean chroot'd environment for all its
builds.

[...]
> And then it was irritating when some specifically named packages were not installed (math/gnumeric, editors/abiword-docs, mail/metamail, for instance).

I would check:
 1. did the packages get built, and are present in the local package repository.
 2. what sort of error messages you are getting from just a "pkg
install ${package}" from the local package repo.

Cheers.
-- 
Jonathan Chen <jonc at chen.org.nz>