> One technique that I use is to download all the packages ahead of time and
> then run pkg_add against local packages.

You know, this reminds me of a  (possibly dumb) question I've been meaning
to ask.

Is there some pkgsrc variable I can set, or some option I can specify when
building from source, to say "look for prerequisite packages in binary form
first?"

I built mplayer from source the other day because there was no i386 2.0
binary yet, but there were binary packages for most of the prequisites.
When I noticed mid-afternoon that my machine was building all of qt3-libs
from source just to put mplayer on, I killed the build, ran pkg_add qt3-libs,
and reran make.  Much faster.  What I'd really like is the option for
"install this package, installing from binary everything that's already
available, and building only what isn't."  But I haven't stumbled on it.

-Chap