Subject: Re: pkgsrc and update
To: None <robert@kormar.net>
From: Brian McEwen <bmcewen@comcast.net>
List: netbsd-users
Date: 07/26/2005 09:51:15
On Jul 26, 2005, at 9:05 AM, Robert Cates wrote:

> Well, so much for using 'pkg_chk'...  it was looking pretty good at  
> first,
> then it ended with this (and that's the same problem I was having  
> when I did
> a 'make update')..

In my experience, make update whacked a lot of my system, then  
aborted, and then I had to figure out what was and was not present as  
I hadn't been logging to a file.

Since then I just make install, and if something has a version  
mismatch (well exact match I guess) or needs reinstalled I can just  
pkg_delete the one file and then make reinstall- sometimes having to  
force it due to dependencies- stuff that's built OK won't need redone  
unless I've cleaned, so I don't lose much time.  This keeps me from  
rebuilding unecessary things over and over, keeps my system from  
getting totally whacked  ('cos make update deletes _everything_ first  
then hopes the rebuild goes OK- it would be better if it deleted one- 
at-a-time).

Yes I risk a little bit that dependent packages will have an issue  
with a newer version of a component, but this way I keep track of  
what is going on, I can limit potential issues to one-at-a-time, and  
for me, it has worked a lot better.  YMMV.  I'm still figuring out a  
lot, but this has kept me from wasting a lot of time.

I asked about this stuff either here or on -cobalt about 6 or 8  
months ago; make update doesn't have a great reputation.  pkg_chk has  
some neat features but the fact that it calls make update keeps me  
from wanting to touch it.  I like the -g option though, I might use  
that for scripting input.  Although I'm not sure why that's  
intrinsically much different than just the output from:

ls /var/db/pkg

> and now I do not know what all packages have been updated or deleted!!
> Funny thing is, I had just installed all of xorg yesterday!  I'm  
> getting
> pretty angry at NetBSD and this pkgsrc problem!!
>
> -Robert

yup. Been there, done that, won't do it again :)    make update  does  
that :/

I suggest ignoring that little message about "make update" that comes  
up when building, and following the "pkg_delete" suggestion instead.   
at least that way you know what has been going on.

HTH.

Brian