Installing software via ports and packages

[Mike Maltese]

Lance Earl wrote:

>I installed FreeBsd 4.9 with fluxbox. Using ports I installed Bluefish(I
>was disappointed to see that the most current port was an older version),
>Nedit, Nano, Gimp and Gftp. The ports download and compile of these
>programs took approximately forever plus 32 seconds. I tried installing
>with packages but ran into installation errors.
>  
>
First, try www/bluefish-devel for a newer version. Is your ports tree up 
to date? If you'd like to see a port updated, try contacting that port's 
maintainer. Second, could you be more specific about the errors you're 
getting? Finally, you stated that this is a slow machine (though I've 
never heard of a Pentium 250). Compiling certain ports (like The Gimp) 
from source _will_take_forever_ on a machine of that vintage. You should 
upgrade your hardware, not blame FreeBSD, if speed is an issue. You do 
understand that compiling from source is different that installing an 
RPM, right? As for packages, again, you'll need to be more specific.

>In frustration I reinstalled Fedora.
>  
>
I'm sorry to hear that.

>I really want to use FreeBSD. I like their philosophy and direction. I
>like this mailing list and the handbook is very useful. But if it takes
>all day to install relatively small packages, I can't wait... my time has
>value too.
>  
>
Then use it. When I started using FreeBSD a couple years ago, I was 
using a PII 266. I pretty much accepted that things of this nature were 
going to take some time. If your time is that valuable, I would again 
suggest upgrading your hardware.