Re: NetBSD vs FreeBSD

["Jeremy C. Reed" <reed%reedmedia.net@localhost>]

On Thu, 4 Aug 2011, Alex Goncharov wrote:

> | 1.  it allows pkgsrc packages to be built with exactly the versions of
> | software that are wanted, and not what happens to be already installed
> | in /usr/local - to illustrate, imagine that ncurses is installed, and
> | another package's configure script checks for the presence of ncurses
> | (bad example, since i think freebsd has ncurses in base, but ykwim)
> 
> This all seems very far-fetched.

It is certainly a real issue. Many software when built outside of ports 
(or outside of pkgsrc) defaults to installing to /usr/local/. So simply 
the addition of an include file, some binary, some library, some 
pkg-config file, et cetera, may in the future 
enable/disable/break/enhance or otherwise change some later "ports" 
build resulting in a package possible different than what was expected. 
Even if the package list is the same, it may have new dependencies or 
capabilities not expected. And after removing the "/usr/local" addition 
(whatever it was) may break the package like removing a shared library 
(and since not registered as a package dependency it won't warn you).

Even if you choose a custom localbase, the problem is still possible 
since /usr/local is often still looked at.  pkgsrc builds work very 
hard to make sure /usr/local and /usr/pkg are not looked at when 
building packages.


> ----------------------------------------
> ls -d1 /usr/ports/databases/postgresql*server
> /usr/ports/databases/postgresql82-server/
> /usr/ports/databases/postgresql83-server/
> /usr/ports/databases/postgresql84-server/
> /usr/ports/databases/postgresql90-server/
> /usr/ports/databases/postgresql91-server/
> 
> 
> ls -d1 /usr/ports/databases/mysql*server
> /usr/ports/databases/mysql323-server/
> /usr/ports/databases/mysql40-server/
> /usr/ports/databases/mysql41-server/
> /usr/ports/databases/mysql50-server/
> /usr/ports/databases/mysql51-server/
> /usr/ports/databases/mysql55-server/
> 
> s -d1 /usr/ports/editors/openoffice.org-*
> /usr/ports/editors/openoffice.org-2/
> /usr/ports/editors/openoffice.org-3/
> /usr/ports/editors/openoffice.org-3-RC/
> /usr/ports/editors/openoffice.org-3-devel/
> /usr/ports/editors/openoffice.org-vcltesttool/
> 
> ----------------------------------------
> 
> Does one really need more than that?


I think there was a misunderstanding, so I don't understand context of 
that.

> | 2. isolates dependencies so that dangling or hidden dependencies just
> | do not happen.
> 
> 'pkgdb -F' won't do it for you on FreeBSD?


Also different.  That is for fixing later.

The "hidden" dependencies in question are those detected at build time 
(described above).

> | in addition, from a user's pov, pkgsrc's config file handling is done
> | in a smart way so that any changes to standard configs are preserved,
> | rc.d scripts can optionally be installed to /etc so that they work
> | out
> 
> Any port rc.d script is installed (with either install method) under
> /usr/local/etc/rc.d and works out of the box (subject to rc.conf
> X_enable=YES, of course).


Yes.  pkgsrc offers "staged" rc.d scripts, so they are installed as 
examples and optionally put in place to use (if a custom version is not 
already there).

> | of the box, and much, much more.
> 
> It is quite possible that pkgsrc has some advantages for a very
> sophisticated use, but it seems to me that in comparing it with
> FreeBSD ports some of the obvious capacities of the latter are
> overlooked.
> 
> Such as '-p' and '-P' of pkg_add:


pkgsrc had those too. I think the master/slave mode was removed, but 
basic functionality of these are the same. Note that the FreeBSD-style 
of "staged" (master/slave) mode at binary package install time is 
different than pkgsrc's build-time staged installs. (I am curious does 
anyone use FreeBSD's pkg_add master/slave installs and why?)

The concept of changing the install prefix at pkg_add time is much 
different than choosing a custom prefix at build time.