Newby Question: What to do when one port can't recognize another port?

[Jeff D]

Matthew,

On 10/30/07, Matthew Seaman <m.seaman at infracaninophile.co.uk> wrote:
>
> This is a known problem with the apache22 port.  At the moment it only
> understands about Berkeley DB versions up to 4.4.x -- there's an open
> ticket in the PR system which requests support for versions up to 4.6.x:
> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=ports/116637
>
> Until that gets fixed, use BDB 4.4.x instead.  To make that the default
> version on your system add this to /etc/make.conf:
>
>   WITH_BDB_VER=           44


Thanks for pointing this out.

I'd thought that the port system in Freebsd was assured to be internally
consistent with all other stuff in the system by a central team (QA?).  I
didn't realize that each port was from a different person, and that the
process could get held up for weeks or months.

I guess your advice is what I should do.  I'm a little nervous about undoing
what's already been done, and think I might just start over with db44 to be
safe.

Knowing this now, I guess I should also make a list of the programs and
versions I need, and check each & every one for problems before I start
again.  If something popular like the Apache Web Server has long standing
unresolved issues like this, other programs may too.

A friend is pushing me to use Ubunutu Linux instead, saying that stuff like
this doesn't happen with it, but I'm not so convinced.  After being  'sold'
on the Freebsd ports, it's worth some more reading.

Thanks.

Regards,

  Jeff