Subject: Re: PREFER_NATIVE useless?
To: Rui-Xiang Guo <rxg@myrealbox.com>
From: Todd Vierling <tv@duh.org>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 11/30/2005 09:32:56
On Wed, 30 Nov 2005, Rui-Xiang Guo wrote:

> Hi, all.
> I install the Xfree from xsrc and set the PREFER_NATIVE=yes in /etc/mk.conf,
> then try to build the www/firefox. I find it still install some builtin pkgs
> from pkgsrc, e.g.:

> ===> Cleaning for xcursor-1.1.2
> ===> Cleaning for Xrandr-1.0.2nb2
> ===> Cleaning for Xfixes-2.0.1nb1

> Do I misunderstand it's usage?

The PREFER variables are preferences, but are not always heeded.  Even when
you use PREFER_PKGSRC=yes or PREFER.<pkg>=pkgsrc, pkgsrc will still install
its own copies to get more functionality when absolutely required:  when the
native version is missing, or not new enough to provide the functionality
needed by pkgsrc.

Some particular packages are considered special by default, such that the
pkgsrc versions are always preferred.  The list is in
pkgsrc/mk/defaults/mk.conf:

PREFER_PKGSRC?=         MesaLib Xft2 Xrandr Xrender expat fontconfig    \
                        freetype2 glu randrext renderext xcursor

If you really want these to prefer native usage where available, put:

PREFER_PKGSRC=

in your /etc/mk.conf (that sets it to an empty string).  Note that this may
cause the build of some packages to fail, because the native versions of
these packages are often too "old" to be useful to newer pkgsrc packages.

-- 
-- Todd Vierling <tv@duh.org> <tv@pobox.com> <todd@vierling.name>