Word processor for 6.1

[Erik Norgaard]

Perry Hutchison wrote:
>> Looking at that post it seems something failed when you tried to
>> update your ports collection.
> 
> I suspect the blunder was in trying to update Ports at all, given it
> is a new 6.1 CD install and nothing *else* is updated.  The Handbook
> suggests to always update Ports before trying to fetch/build anything,
> but that does not seem to have worked out very well in this case.

The catch-22 is that you need to install cvsup from ports to update 
ports - but that has been solved, the head of RELENG_6 has csup as 
replacement in base, it will no longer be necessary to install cvsup.

>> I'd suggest you delete it (keep distfiles though so you won't have
>> to fetch again), unpack again the ports.tgz, then install cvsup
>> and update the ports collection using that.
> 
> I hesitate to get onto the cvsup treadmill -- from reading the
> website, tracking CURRENT did not sound like my desired usage model.
> I suspect what I really need is to have the entire Ports mechanism,
> including any downloaded distfiles, frozen as of 6.1-RELEASE.
> Unfortunately, the Handbook does not seem to cover that situation,
> at least in the Ports section.

I think this relies on a misunderstanding on how cvsup works and the 
distinction between ports and base. In your sup-file you specify the tag 
you want to checkout.

In the standard-supfile for the base system you'd specify RELENG_6 which 
means you'll get head of -STABLE, or if you are conservative RELENG_6_1 
which means that you'll just get security patches to the 6.1 release.

Ports has its own life, since third party apps are not developed in sync 
with the release schedule it does not make much sense to freeze at a 
particular release.

Anyway, you can do it as with the base system setting the cvsup tag in 
the ports-supfile. The situation you wanted compares to not updating the 
ports collection at all.

>> If you installed programs from packages when you installed the
>> system, you may get problems with version conflicts installing
>> from an updated ports collection - this happens usually when the
>> last release is getting old. In that case, maybe you should clean
>> out the system, deinstall all packages, update ports and start
>> again. This takes time .... but given that 6.2 is coming up.
> 
> It would also thoroughly defeat the purpose of installing from CD!

While FBSD try to stick to POLA, you can't expect this to be the case 
for third party apps. Updating will sometimes break things, and sooner 
or later you will find conflicts adding up, and these conflicts occur 
when you have apps from different snapshots trying to coexist.

Evidently, when the next release is coming up soon, one can assume that 
a lot of changes have been committed so installing a minimal system and 
updating everything should be considered while the system is still not 
in production. This will also ease the transition to RELENG_6_2.

It does not defeat the purpose of installing from CD, you need to get 
the minimal system installed first.

> I wonder if I ought to wipe the partitions and start completely over
> with a fresh install, and this time *don't* try to update the Ports.

If your system is otherwise clean and not in production, this may be the 
faster route (although unnecessary, and you won't learn as much about 
how to maintain the system).

Cheers, Erik
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