Up grading ports, Xorg et all

[doug at safeport.com]

On Wed, 16 Dec 2009, Warren Block wrote:

> On Wed, 16 Dec 2009, doug at safeport.com wrote:
>
>> I messed up a KDE 3.5.10 trying to install firefox3 so I thought I would 
>> attempt to upgrade using portupgrade and/or portmaster. After a lot of work 
>> I think I am back to if you use KDE the only way to upgrade is to start 
>> afresh.
>> 
>> At this point I thought I would try Xorg 7.4. I did a "pkg_delete -a" and 
>> "pkg_add -r xorg". This was a complete disaster.
>
> How, specifically?

The keyboard was locked only the power key worked. As in my earlier response I 
tried as many variation of the option as indicated by the handbook and my 
imagination. It is probably true that xorg worked albeit without the keyboard.
Neither startx or xdm acted differently. E.g, I got a black screen and a locked 
system.

>> After trying all the configuration options, tips etc in the handbook, 
>> google et all, I decided my 3+ year old thinkpad was just not supported so 
>> I composed a "can anyone help me" email to questions. This went off into 
>> the ether through user error.
>> 
>> While I was waiting for help I thought I would try installing Xorg from an 
>> iso image. The resulting install worked out of the box using the last 
>> variation of xorf.conf I had tried. I am left to assume that what I got 
>> from pkg_add does not fit together.
>
> The symptoms described in your earlier mail sound like it worked but was 
> different from what you expected.

I do not think so because after installing from the iso, startx and xdm worked 
with the last version of my xorg.conf file.

>> Obviously my earlier attempts to get an xorg.conf file worked fine. The 
>> code did not. As a thought to the Xorg, I do not think the unbundling makes 
>> things more stable. Xfree86 was bad enough (so I thought) with its couple 
>> of dozen (or so) components. Starting from scratch I now have 204 ports and 
>> two versions of python just to run twm. Given that some number of the 204 
>> component are under active development using pkg_add seems out of the 
>> question. The second version of python came in because I could not find xdm 
>> in the 7.2-release disk1 iso so I did a pkg_add on xdm.
>
> This sounds like you are mixing old and new packages.  portupgrade (and 
> probably also portmaster) can use packages for you.

Maybe. But if I start with a system with no ports and do a pkg_add, I do not see 
how I am mixing old and new. This was certainly true before I deleted everything 
but I was trying only to upgrade firefox2 --> firefox3 on xorg 7.3 using 
portmaster and then portupgrade. When that did not work (and I have no issues 
with that) I delete all ports and started with xorg 7.4. I see no other 
conclusion other than one (or more) of the 204 ports installed by pkg_add was 
too old (or new).

_____
Douglas Denault
http://www.safeport.com
doug at safeport.com
Voice: 301-217-9220
   Fax: 301-217-9277