problem with pkg_add 'latest' category

[Kent Stewart]

On Saturday 20 December 2003 09:34 am, fbsd_user wrote:
> Pkg_add  uses this default path
> /pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-4.9-release/Latest/
>
>
> The 'Latest' directory is an unpublished category and contains all
> the package versions of the ports collection as an massive list of
> all 9,600 ports. The names in this list do not match the spelling of
> the true package names and they look like they are really link
> files.
>
> /pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-4.9-release/

I have long held the belief that this is equivalent to running a release and 
ignoring security updates or bug fixes. Your comment got me looking at the 
options. I am not sure what is correct but I think you should be specifying 
PACKAGESITE and pointing to something like
ftp://ftp10.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/packages/All

You don't have to build the packages but if you don't cvsup ports-all, you 
don't have the latest environment either and is equivalent to running a 
release with all of the risks. 

Kent

>
> contains all the packages categories and the names in each category
> are the true spelling of the port names with the version as part of
> the name, and is really the package version. These also look like
> link files, but at least the names match the names pointed to by
> http://www.freebsd.org/ports/index.html.  The FBSD handbook says to
> use this web page to search the ports collection to find the
> category and name of the port you want to select for installing, but
> if you use that name in the pkg_add -rv xxxxxxxxxxx it is not found.
> Of course it's not found because pkg_add defaults to 'latest'
> category which has all different spelling of the names. No wonder
> people have so much trouble using the package collection when there
> is no way to find the correct spelling of the name. This is an built
> in incentive to force users to use the cvsup ports collection and
> all it's inherent waste of disk space and bandwidth, which the
> package collection is suppose to correct.
>
>
> Why is the 'latest' category populated with bogus names when the
> correct names are all ready present in the other categories
> surrounding it? This is not unique to just one ftp site but to all
> ftp sites ftp1 - ftp14.
>
> The simplest solution is to populate the 'latest' category with the
> correct spelling of the names, Or better yet get rid of the latest
> category and change the pkg_add program to default to using
> /pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-4.9-release/ and change the format
> of the
> pkg_add command to pkg_add -r /catorgy/full.port.name.
>
> Before I submit bug report, I want to get users comments on this
> subject in case I have missed something in my research.
>
> Thanks
> Joe
>
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-- 
Kent Stewart
Richland, WA

http://users.owt.com/kstewart/index.html