alternative options for ports

[Michael Nottebrock]

On Saturday 16 October 2004 01:14, Parv wrote:
> I suppose i had to wade in sooner or later ...
>
>
> in message <200410152156.16113.michaelnottebrock at gmx.net>,
> wrote Michael Nottebrock thusly...
>
> > On Friday 15 October 2004 16:15, Erik Trulsson wrote:
> > > I almost never use binary packages but build everything from
> > > source. (I.e. I would probably barely notice if all binary
> > > packages suddenly disappeared never to return.)
>
> Well, i certainly be mightily ticked off (due to lack of *some* of
> the packages) when i lack the resources to build a humongous port
> like Open Office.
>
> > I realise that there is a fraction of ports users which don't care
> > about packages at all ...  but they are not the primary target
> > audience of ports, as I pointed out before.
>
> Michael N, do you imply in above quote that FreeBSD ports system's
> main purpose is to provide packages?

No, it's _one_ main purpose. Unlike portage or certain big rpm-based Linux 
distributions, freebsd ports does not lean towards either source or binary. 
This implies however both the package and 'the cd portdir; make; make 
install' of installing a port need to be taken into consideration when 
creating and maintaining a port. Packages are NOT a second class byproduct of 
ports which are nice when they are nice and if they're not, it doesn't matter 
anyway. If the package of a certain port sucks, the port sucks, it's as 
simple as that.

-- 
   ,_,   | Michael Nottebrock               | lofi at freebsd.org
 (/^ ^\) | FreeBSD - The Power to Serve     | http://www.freebsd.org
   \u/   | K Desktop Environment on FreeBSD | http://freebsd.kde.org
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