A lot of pkg problems

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 16 Sep 2014, Jos Chrispijn wrote:

> Coert:
>> Upgraded to version 1.3.7, was on an older one indeed. Was running 1.2.4_1 
>> Still having issues though, for now I just stick to release/0 and pkg 
>> version 1.2.4_1 Going to try an upgrade later 
> I really don't know why pkg should be used in this stage. I seldom have seen 
> so much negative side effects with using a program as with this one.
> Is the program not tested thouroughly or am I just too stupid to understand? 
> Last time I used it, my complete php port system got damaged and had to 
> reinstall BSD from scratch in order to get my active ports in line again.
>
> Please understand that writing this is no offence to the author of pkg; I 
> really respect all effort that is put in it - I just don't understand why it 
> causes me/us so much trouble using it.

Sometimes there is bad data from previous installations, or usage of the 
tool is different enough from the previous one that it is misunderstood. 
Sometimes, that is a doc bug.

Two important points:

1. Using pkg to manage installed applications does not require using 
binary packages.  Ports work as before.

2. A total removal and reinstall of packages or ports does not require 
reinstalling the operating system.  At worst, deleting all 
installed applications with 'pkg delete -afy' is enough.