paul beard wrote:
> 
> regrettably, your .sig rings true this time. building from pkgsrc craps
> out on some issues with QT: it seems there are some disagreements about
> how to use libtool and it just dies. I have tried everything I know and
> have gotten nowhere.

Yep.  It did that with me too.  I had to go back and install the 
demanded items with pkg_add...

> The irritating thing this is that there is only *one* piece of KDE that
> isn't available thru pkg_add -- kdeutils -- but it blocks everything else.

Yep.  I did a full pkg_add install of KDE(1), and it bombed on a 
dependency.  I figured it wasn't being maintained, so I did a pkg_add 
series for KDE2, and there was no kdeutils2, and it kept choking on 
finding the KDE 1 dependencies.  

So I removed nearly every package that I had on the box, because I 
didn't have a coherent list of KDE2 dependencies, and was short on 
sleep - slash and burn.  Then I went and got all of pkgsrc, started 
compiling KDE2, and went to bed.  It crashed.  I fixed the problem, 
restarted the compile, and went back to bed.  Lather, rinse, repeat, 
several times.  It actually never did compile everything, but I was 
able to get it running, for both root and users.  By that time my 
dreams were full of compile logs and errors.  I put netscape on it, 
and a few other minor things, all from pkgsrc, and read my email.  I 
tried to install wine, but the makefile said wine on 1.5 was flawed 
and wouldn't even try to get the rest of it.  I quit for the week.

So I rebooted into Windoze so my roomie could use the box.  When I 
went back into NetBSD a couple days later, it would not let me run 
KDE as anything but root.  I whimpered and shut it down, and am 
trying to decide whether to a) try again with NetBSD from scratch, 
b) install debian to make my roomie happy, or c) order the Solaris 
for Intel disks and put that on it.

> I moved from linux to bsd to get away from RPM and it's poor attempt at
> handling dependencies: annoying to get bitten  by it here.

My roomie has been raving about debian's apt-get, and how good it 
is.  If I decide to play with debian, I'll post a comparison.

		Linda "Solaris was my first *nix" Laubenheimer
-- 
Linda J Laubenheimer - UNIX Geek, Sysadmin, Bibliophile and Iconoclast
http://www.modusvarious.net/ - consultants available
http://www.laubenheimer.net/ - personal demo site
http://www.geocities.com/laubenheimer/ - web design gaffes (I wouldn't 
disgrace a real ISP with these) and rants about bad design.