Hehe... I know that I am asking for trouble...

But since I didn't update /usr/pkgsrc in between, I am in fact 
rebuilding the same packages that are already installed... albeit now 
building them with a 3.1 instead of a 3.0.1... and after a general make 
clean from /usr/pkgsrc to make sure I am rebuilding ALL the stuff that 
gnome depends on and implies... so I am making the assumption that the 
same thing as was present will be installed... and maybe just a few 
files will still remain that are not needed but not used anymore. I 
don't really see how that can break too many things.

But if worse comes to worse, I will delete /usr/pkg (except /usr/pkg/etc 
and do a full real rebuild and get back to a supported configuration).

What pleases me here (appart from the sarcastic answer which I didn't 
really know what to make of) is that 3 people have given me 3 different 
procedures. One of them is completely described (thanks to Lasse), one 
tells me to go read the manual of some fuctions and gives a general idea 
of which tools to use (thanks Geert) and one (Jeremy) says what to use, 
but not with any specific process. I guess each method has its 
advantages. Some users will love the opportunity to try to figure it 
all... others will like to read the doc and do after... and some will 
appreciate a 
cut-paste-get-it-working-THEN-read-the-doc-to-undestand-when-they-have-time 
approach.

Thanks to all who replied. Machine is rebuilding for now... going on 
fine... let's see how it goes in a day when all is rebuilt... and 
hopefully running.

Gilles.

Geert Hendrickx wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 07, 2006 at 12:35:01PM +0100, Lasse Hillerøe Petersen wrote:
>   
>> I think what Geert is trying to tell you in a humourous manner is that what
>> you suggest is not a very good idea. However, the way he tries to tell you
>> that is in itself not a very good idea. 15 years of Usenet experience tells
>> me that when someone asks a silly question in earnest, it is bad style to
>> respond with sarcasm - the sarcasm is at best lost on the recipient, and
>> at worst alienates the recipient, which is counter-productive in so many
>> ways.
>>
>> (If Geert seriously thinks that asking silly questions on netbsd-users is
>> enough to disqualify a NetBSD user from support, and if that attitude is
>> approved by the NetBSD Project, then I think it is time for us "ordinary"
>> dumb users to set up a NetBSD user society that is detached from netbsd.org
>> itself. If anyone cares about why I am saying this then ask me, otherwise
>> I won't bore you with more details. Especially not because I think and
>> hope that both conditions in the beginning of this parenthetical remark
>> are demonstrably false.)
>>     
>
> Some people seem to like repeating the same question, but others don't like
> repeating the same answer.  He asked advice on how to perform a specific
> action, and I pointed him at a useful package to do this and listed the
> commands in brief.  Apparantly he misunderstood, so I repeated the
> instructions in somewhat greater detail and pointed him at the manpage,
> urging him to read it before proceeding.
> Next thing he suggests something completely unsupported and is *begging*
> for trouble.  He's not even asking whether this is a good or a bad idea,
> the commands were already running.  If he breaks his system by doing such
> things, I no longer want to help him (I suggested *working* alternatives
> before), and I'm sure other people on this list also have better things to
> do.
>
>   
>> As for the technical details, I suppose by losing the pkg db stuff in /var,
>> you lost all track of installed packages and their relations. I'm not sure
>> though. I have used rm -rf /var/db/pkg /usr/pkg now and then to get rid of
>> packages quickly, and would frankly like to know too what is intrinsically
>> wrong with that method. It's not like the pkg system is perfect in the
>> first place, and as far as I can tell, doing this should clean out everything
>> package-related quite nicely, except for stuff added to /etc perhaps.
>>     
>
> If you're nuking /var/db/pkg and /usr/pkg together, you're effectively
> removing *all* your packages (except for some /etc and /var stuff as you
> mentioned), which is an entirely different thing than removing /var/db/pkg
> alone.
>
>   
>> Just to give you all a chance of having a good laugh at my expense, I'll
>> finish by telling how *I* manage my packages, feel free to point a finger
>> of your choice at me:
>>
>> To get a list of packages I have installed and want to keep, I do:
>> pkg_info -B -a |grep PKGPATH|sed 's/PKGPATH=//' >pkgs_i_want_to_have
>>
>> To clear out all the packages, I do:
>> pkg_info -a|sed 's/ .*//'|tail -r|while read p ; do pkg_delete $p ; done
>>
>> I edit pkgs_i_want_to_have as needed, then:
>> cat pkgs_i_want_to_have|
>> (while read pp ; do cd /usr/pkgsrc/$pp ; make && make install ; done)
>>
>> I am sure there are terrific pkg tools to do this, but my method appears
>> to work, and therefore I have little incentive to bother with changing it.
>>     
>
> The essential difference with this method is that you're only using pkg_*
> tools to manipulate your packages, so at least it *should* work, and even
> if it doesn't, you can ask for help here or on a pkgsrc mailing list.  In
> contrast to Gilles.
>
> 	Geert
>   

-- 
/*Gilles Gravier*/ *=* *Gilles@Gravier.org* <mailto:Gilles@Gravier.org> 
*=* *http://www.gravier.org/*
ICQ : *77488526* 
<http://www.icq.com/whitepages/about_me.php?Uin=77488526> * || *MSN 
Messenger : Gilles@Gravier.org <http://members.msn.com/Gilles@Gravier.org>*
*Skype : ggravier <callto://ggravier>* || *Y! : ggravier 
<http://profiles.yahoo.com/ggravier> || AOL : gillesgravier 
<aim:goim?screenname=gillesgravier>
PGP Key ID : *0x8DE6D026* 
<http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?search=0x8DE6D026&op=index>
"Chastity is its own punishment." (/Solomon Short/) [/David Gerrold/]
"De toutes les aberrations sexuelles, la chasteté est la plus 
aberrante." [Anatole France]