errors with dependant packages while installing ports.

[Lowell Gilbert]

Matthew Seaman <m.seaman at infracaninophile.co.uk> writes:

> On Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at 11:06:40PM +0000, carmoda wrote:
> 
> > I seem to get failures just about every time i try to install anything:
> > 
> > in particular errors with dependant packages:
> > 
> > "An older version of whatever/whatever is already installed..."
> > 
> > now, on attempts to update any of these dependancy packages i break my 
> > system... so. do i just accept i cannot update or run certain things, or 
> > is there some trick t this i am missing...?
> > 
> > please 'CC' me as i am on digest mode...
> 
> This is the main problem that portupgrade(1) solves: package
> dependency ordering.

*Most* of the time, just building from ports instead of installing
from packages solves this particular case of the dependency problem.

If the new program really *requires* an updated version of the
dependency (as opposed to the packages case, where it's linked against
that version but could -- typically -- just as easily have been linked
against an older version), then you need to update the dependency, and
everything else that's dependent on it.  This is where portupgrade
really saves you an awful lot of (tedious) effort.

Telling the two cases apart can be a bit tricky for non-programmers,
but building the port will usually tell you.