[HOW-TO] cvsup for ports -- Re: compact portsnap db

[Ian Smith]

On Sat, 05 Jan 2008 22:31:29 "Aryeh M. Friedman" <aryeh.friedman at gmail.com> wrote:
 > Rudy wrote:
 > > Michael Lednev wrote:
 > >> Hello.
 > >>
 > >> Is there any way to compact /var/db/portsnap other than deleting
 > >> it and doing postsnap fetch?

Not really.  /var/db/portsnap/files contains one file for each port,
gzipped.  Mine's about 70MB with indices, containing a ports tree of
some 450MB.

I guess it depends whether that much space is more precious to you than
the time and bandwidth to fetch and then extract the whole tree afresh?

 > > I don't like portsnap -- granted I've never typed the portsnap
 > > command in my 10 years of FreeBSD use.  I use cvsup!

I didn't like it much until I'd tried it, either :)

c[v]sup works fine too of course, so trimming some discussion of that .. 

[..]

 > > If you don't have cvsup installed, run this command: # pkg_add -r
 > > cvsup-without-gui
 > 
 > It is better to use all ports or all packages so either do:

Why do you say that?  Do you know of unresolved issues regarding the
interactions of port versus package installations?  Any references?

 > cd /usr/ports/net/cvsup-without-gui
 > make install clean
 > 
 > or after doing the above do a pkg_delete -a (assuming that your
 > working with a clean machine [no ports/packages instaleld except cvsup]

Why wouldn't pkg_delete -a remove your just-installed cvsup-without-gui? 

 > > For more info on the supfile, look at this file on your FreeBSD
 > > machine: /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile
 > >
 > > Preferring cvsup to portsnap is kinda like preferring vim over
 > > emacs...  It's a holy war and the vi/cvsup side uses less disk
 > > space.
 > 
 > Actually it is not like that at all.. cvsup/csup is the officially
 > preferred method and any other method is a short cut of some kind...

Please provide a reference URL to 'official' support of this claim?

 > many of them have very subtle issues that the typical end-user should
 > not notice but should be aware of...

Issues such as?  And what other alternatives to c*sup and portsnap exist
for ports tree management?

ooroo, Ian