stay up to date with ports and packages, problem

[doug at safeport.com]

On Sat, 19 May 2012, Polytropon wrote:

> On Sat, 19 May 2012 11:08:19 -0700 (PDT), Beastie-Boy wrote:
>> Ok, many thanks for your replies.
>> I forgot to tell that i recently upgraded from 8.1 to 9.0-RELEASE.
>> That excplains maybe why i had obsolete/old packages/ports on my disk.
>
> When you do such an update (major version number), you should
> always reinstall (update) your applications. You can avoid it
> by installing the compat-Nx-i386 or compat-Nx-amd64 ports (where
> N is the previously used major version number).
>
> You've found many advices on how to do that already from the
> list.
>> The problem i had was that gdm, gnome didnt start after the upgrade.
>
> That was to be expected.
>
>> So i tried to build the gnome and gdm thing again via pkg_add(didnt work)
>> and make install clean in ports(either).
>
> You should make sure _all_ dependencies get recompiled. Using
> a port management tool for this task often is more comfortable
> than dealing with the "bare ports" (but it basically is not
> wrong).

There are two great tools for dealing with problems stemming from the update of 
a single port going bad: pkg_cleanup and pkg_tree. I prefer portmaster over 
portupdate because portmaster only uses the data that is there from building or 
adding port/packages. portmaster probably works better for me because I only 
update in response to a need or problem.

I do not have enough time or computing power to build what is required for a 
workstation. I am using FreeBSD 9.0 and xfce 4.8. To get the functionality I had 
with KDE3.5 I ended up with 489 packages. I had hoped for a smaller number but 
that seems to be the norm for KDE or Gome. The only ports I built were a couple 
that insisted on installing an older version of perl and/or python. Everything 
else was via package add. In my experience this model only works near the front 
of a major release. As the lower level ports diverge updates must be built. Here 
pkg_cleanup is a great tool for taking a step back. Perhaps building regularly 
on a weekly basis and updating everying would work. For me after I get a 
functional system I only add new stuff. I do not remember having to reinstalling 
something because it did not work.

Before someone pointed out pkg_cleanup I pretty completely broke my desktop 
(this in the 7.x days) just by upgrading firefox and then chasing the issues 
that came up.