some simple Questions

[Schiz0]

On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 1:32 PM, Nex6 <myndshell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>  I am new to Freebsd tho, long time Linux/Windows user.
>
>  install software:
>  seems the way to to this is pkg_add -r software-name

There are two ways to install software. Using packages (pkg_add) or
using ports. See my response below for details on how to use ports.

>  system update:
>  still not sure? tho this is probly something really simple, seems more the
>  one way to do it.

FreeBSD comes with the source code for the entire system. So, to
upgrade the system, you need to do two things:
1. Checkout the source code for whatever update you want to use
2. Compile and install that source code.

For the first one, see:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvsup.html

For the second one, see:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/makeworld.html

>  main difference between packages and ports?

Packages are pre-compiled binaries (which are created from the ports).
The ports collection contains small Makefiles. When you install from
ports, it does the following:
1. Downloads the source code from whatever website it is hosted on.
2. Apply the FreeBSD patches/upgrades/whatever
3. Compile that source code
4. Install the binaries to the proper location

>
>  thanks in adavnce.
>