pkg repository question

[doug]

On Sun, 3 Aug 2014, Matthew Seaman wrote:

> On 03/08/2014 20:19, doug at safeport.com wrote:
>> I was building an old 9.1 system to check something out. It was
>> convenience to use a 9.1-rc3 a DVD. I got an error saying there were no
>> repositories for non releases. Perfectly understandable, so I updated to
>> 9.1-rel and all is well.
>
> This sounds suspiciously like the behaviour of the old pkg_tools stuff.
> I can't remember for sure if 9.1 came with pkg(8) as standard or not --
> I don't believe it did.  Are you sure you weren't inadvertently trying
> to install some old-style packages?

I do not think so. What I meant to do (and think I did) was to portsnap, build 
pkg, run pkg2ng (even though is/should not be required) and then do a pkg to 
install a package. This is a VM system so its easy to shake things out. I just 
want to learn how it all fits together before September

>> That prompted two questions: first, is there a way to have forced the
>> use of a 9.1 repository; and secondly how long will old repositories be
>> available?
>
> With pkg(8), there is no such thing as a '9.1' repository -- at least,
> not anything officially supplied by the FreeBSD project.
>
> There are repositories for eg, freebsd:9:x86:64 which are suitable for
> any version of FreeBSD with a major version of '9'.  Although for best
> results, you should be running a version (9.x-STABLE, 9,x-RELEASE) at
> least as new as the oldest supported release with a 9.x version number.
> Currently that's 9.1-RELEASE.
>
> Updated packages for 9.x release will be provided for as long as there
> are still supported versions of 9.x available.  The packages will be
> built on the earliest still-supported 9.x-RELEASE, which will be
> 9.3-RELEASE towards the end of 9.x lifetime in December 2016[*].  These
> should probably still work on earlier releases, but no guarantees.

With the old package system the package directory systems seem to hang around 
for much longer periods. Will the initial release of the pkg packages be on the 
release dvd set?