How to repair a package

[Adam Vande More]

On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 4:56 PM, DTD <doug at safeport.com> wrote:

> All are packages, but the dependencies are far too complex at least with
> xfce. Work/not working depends on the project developers correctly defining
> the dependencies and requirements. It would be nice if we could depend on
> being able to update within a FreeBSD version, e.g., 10.3, but that is not
> always the case.
>

The overwhelming majority of the time it is the case.


> For example if on a clean system you install xorg, xdm, xfce, and firefox
> (in that order), firefox does not work (on 10.3). You have to install
> firefox before xfce. Here I know package/port for firefox matters not
> because I had an "empty" ports tree to install against and I tried a number
> of ways of building firefox to get around the issue.
>

So you are mixing ports and packages?  Earlier this is not what you
stated.  No matter, I tested this claim out on a clean 10.3 and FF installs
fine regardless of order.


> In any case there is nothing wrong with my system as installed except a
> package needs to have a missing module replaced. I also think the seg fault
> doing 'pkg install' is an indication of an issue having nothing to do with
> the pkg database. I am sure mixing packages and ports does not matter.


For using this OS as long as you claim, you should be quite aware mixing
ports and packages can have some of challenges.  It's better than it was in
the pkg_* days, but some of the issues remain.

What matters is that the dependency database has the correct information.
> If I am wrong here lets update the handbook guys.
>

Contributions are welcome!


> The firefox issue happens based on the version and (what I think is a bug
> in) the make file that does not define the minimal level of the sqlite
> component that version 50 (and beyond??) requires.


pkg upgrade handles my kde environment quite well, so I don't really
understand your objection.  A full KDE installation plus FF(what my main
system is) is more complex package management than what you describe.
Perhaps you can share the exact nature of what you are seeing like your
precise commands and their output.  If there is a some problem with a legit
installed system(eg non-cowboy pkg installation methods and reproducible on
a clean system) then please file a bug so it can be addressed for everyone.

Additionally, trying to run "pkg install" on a tgz is incorrect.  See
pkg(7) for details.

At least 2 of your issues appear to involve this pkg's:

libX11
libXmu

You can reinstall a pkg to ensure it's in the expected state:

pkg install -f <pkg>

-- 
Adam