port upgrading

[Matthew Seaman]

On 26/09/2010 17:29:17, Dick Hoogendijk wrote:
>  I'm in doubt. I wanted to bring my ports collection uptodate, so I ran
> "csup -L 2 /root/ports-supfile" and that updated my ports collection. At
> least, I hope so.
> 
> Then I started googling and found that cvsup is not recommended. Better
> tot use portsnap (???)
> And also portupgrade was a no go. I should be using portmaster.
> 
> Woh, I'm confused now.
> Question: what is best used to have an up2date ports collection nowadays?
> This system is FreeBSD8/amd64.

csup(1) works fine and there's no good reasons not to use it.

portsnap(1) also works fine, and there aren't any obvious problems that
mean you shouldn't use it either.

There is one somewhat subtle difference, which won't affect most people.
'portsnap extract' will blow away any custom files (Makefile.local,
extra patches etc.) that you've added to the ports tree.  csup(1) leaves
them put.  Obviously, either of the two methods will revert any
modifications you've made to any files already known to be part of the
ports tree.

Once you've updated the tree, then you've got several choices for
updating your installed ports.  portupgrade(1) and portmaster(1) are the
leading candidates there: portupgrade probably still has the edge on
features, although development seems to be stuttering a bit recently.
portmaster wins on simplicity -- it's a shell script with no other
dependencies -- but still packs an awful lot of good stuff into
approximately 3600 lines.  Doug B is actively working on it and very
responsive to bug reports etc.

Really either of those two will serve you well, as will various others I
haven't mentioned.  Try them out, see which is most to your taste.

There isn't any one 'best' solution that everyone is enjoined to use.
That's not the BSD way: "Tools, not policy."  There are several
solutions that you can use, and it's up to you to select which one you
prefer.  Sure, people having strong opinions on the subject have posted
their thoughts on various fora, but don't be misled: those are
individual opinions, and not an official position.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                   7 Priory Courtyard
                                                  Flat 3
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey     Ramsgate
JID: matthew at infracaninophile.co.uk               Kent, CT11 9PW

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