Newbie questions about updating

Jerry McAllister jerrymc at msu.edu
Fri Sep 7 09:30:44 PDT 2007


On Fri, Sep 07, 2007 at 10:53:09AM -0500, cothrige wrote:

> On 9/7/07, Erich Dollansky <oceanare at pacific.net.sg> wrote:
> > Hi,
> 
> Howdy, and thanks for the help.
> 
> [snip]
> >
> > > I have downloaded the FreeBSD 6.2 install discs and have finished the
> >
> > Just stick with 6.2 for the moment.
> 
> > >
> > Wait, you do not install ports from the disc, you install packages from
> > the disc. This is a small difference. Ports are source based, packages
> > are binaries.
> 
> Sorry.  What I really had in mind was the ports tree itself, which I
> had an option during install to add.  BTW, I answered yes to this and
> so had that which was on the 6.2 install disc.  Based on the other
> responses, it is looking like perhaps that is not the best method, and
> maybe I should have skipped that and then added the ports after the
> install using cvsup or such.  This is certainly a good thing to know
> for the future, though as of right now I am dealing with the disc
> install method.

No.  You were right to choose yes.
That just installs the ports tree skeleton.   It does not install
any actual ports.   Then when you do a csup tag=. for the ports tree,
then it updates that tree.   But you would still have to update
the ports from the tree that you have chosen to install.

The ports tree from one version of the OS to the next is not
particularly different.  It is just instructions on how to get
the source and build the port (including dependant ports).  It
gets a little out of date now and then as the list of files that
need to be downloaded or build procedured change, so it need
a csup update now and then.   But what that csup does is update
the skeleton, not the actual ports.   That is a subsequent step.

> > > One of the things which caused me to wonder about this was that some
> > > time back I tried FreeBSD out for a while and ran into some oddities
> > > concerning the ports system.  When I first finished setting things up
> > > I could install packages using "pkg_add -r", but noticed that after
> > > updating the ports I could no longer do that.  That struck me as odd,
> >
> > Updating the ports tree means actually switching to ports but you still
> > can use packages via "portupgrade".
> 
> What has happened to me before is that after the fresh install if I
> typed "pkg_add -r foo" it would say something like "fetching
> http://...freebsd-6.[x]/foo.1.0.0.tbz..."  and then install it.  But,
> after I would update the ports if I typed the same command, "pkg_add
> -r foo", it would fail saying something like "fetching
> http://...freebsd-6.[x]/foo.1.0.1.tbz..." and then say something about
> no such package.  At the time it was happening I had looked at the
> address being used and of course in the one for freebsd-6.whatever (or
> whichever directory my OS was trying to fetch from) there was only the
> foo.1.0.0 file and not the new one.  The ports upgrade seemed to make
> my system stop searching for foo.1.0.0 and begin looking for 1.0.1,
> but it did not change where the pkg_add program looked and so it would
> always fail.
> 
> Most of the time this would be no big deal, and I don't run KDE, Gnome
> or such, but it is more time consuming (especially on some of my old
> stuff like this laptop) and more importantly it just always made me
> think it was broken.  It really just doesn't seem like the intended
> behaviour with it looking for nonexistent packages.  When things seem
> to misbehave like that I always have a sneaking suspicion that not too
> long in the future it will come crashing down as I have some
> fundamental setting flawed and with every install or change I am
> compounding the problem.
> 
> > Never forget, the ports tree is a live object. It can happen that you
> > upgrade now and find a ruined system, then upgrade a minute later and
> > the system is fine again.
> 
> Yes, I can see how that would be the case, and in a broken port I
> think that likely this may be so.  Also, if the package system does
> not operate after updating ports then I could also rest easy that
> things are operating as they should.  However, my reading of the
> handbook, and other documents, implies that one should in theory be
> able to use packages even with an updated ports tree, as portupgrade
> -P would seem to suggest.  But, in the past that would always fail as
> the package does not exist in the place being searched and then a port
> would be built.  Again, building is usually fine, and I may even
> prefer it most of the time, but since portupgrade seems to exist to
> work with updated ports trees, and it has options to use packages, my
> experiences with these in the past have given me the distinct
> impression that I have been doing something wrong.
> 
> 
> > > One last newb question is concerning cvsup itself.  In reference to
> > > ports is there a difference, in the end, between this and portsnap?
> >
> > There should be no difference at the final end.
> 
> Good to know.
> 
> > Erich
> 
> Thanks Erich.
> 
> Patrick
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