On Wednesday, October 20, 2004, at 07:03 PM, Christopher Schultz wrote:

> Yeah, that's what I've found. Is it better to use pkgsrc (how do I use
> that?), or is it better to simply download the raw source packages from
> the appropriate source sites (like Apache, MySQL, etc.) and do
> everything myself. I'm completely confortable with this strategy. The
> only problem is that the qube is reeeeaaaaallllllyyy sssslllloooooowwww
> at compiling just about anything.
>

It's a tossup but pkgsrc should be OK for the "common big items" like 
Apache, postfix, OpenSSL, etc.  Meaning, it should work fine first try. 
  cd to /usr/pkgsrc, cd into the item you want, do a make; make install.

You'll want to compile the sources from pkgsrc rather than get the 
binaries via pkg_add, binaries are comparatively sparse, and usually 
dated.  It's a short list available from the cobalt section of 
netbsd.org.

MySQL needs some tweeking to be happy. Someone posted last week about 
it working (I asked before I tried it).  Mine is stuck at a dependency. 
  I just tried a make update for icecast and after trashing everything I 
had working, it also is crapping out with a dependency failing 
(libxml2) and although everything looks right, it doesn't think it's 
installed.

At least if I were working from original not pkgsrc sources, I'd have a 
config.log to go from, plus more _documented_ parameters to pass to 
./configure.  In pkgsrc, if there's a log file after a failed make 
install, I don't know wheret o find it, and the only output seems to be 
what's dumped to console- so I end up doing it again dumped to a file 
so I can keep track of what I've tried.   I read that I can pass some 
values in global variables but i"ve not figured out the syntax.  I'ts 
sure not documented within the system that I can find, and i've not 
turned up anything in google yet.

One thing, back up everything that could be touched if you to  a make 
update.  There have been lots of posts about things that could be 
changed with pkgsrc to keep it from trashing working setups when 
updating (see the last few weeks of netbsd-users).

I used to think pkgsrc was OK; now I think it's pretty flukey.  Use 
with caution, and back up EVERYTHING before you try something.  It's 
been barely worth having pkgsrc for me, this week.  Fortunately my SSHd 
is still up, I've not tried updating that, but I"m unable to stream 
sound files until I get icecast going again- and how knows yet what 
make update took out; I'm certainly not done (we use it to stram a few 
files for a lab course).  The MySQL is a project for fun.  So I'm not 
dead, just limping :) in terms of using this server for my useful 
purpose.

YMMV.  But the last few weeks has had a fair amount of traffic about 
problems with pkgsrc.
I don't feel picked upon; it's just the way it is working at this time 
(rather problematic).

Brian

-- 
... we parted each feeling
superior to the other and is not that
feeling after all one of the great
desiderata of social intercourse
-archy
_The Life and Times of Archy and Mehitabel_