Subject: Re: How to use on OpenBSD? (has Perl-5.8.8 in OBSD base)
To: None <pkgsrc-users@netbsd.org>
From: The masked-coder known as Randux <randux@Safe-mail.net>
List: pkgsrc-users
Date: 03/15/2007 17:42:26
> On Wed, Mar 14, 2007 at 01:41:48AM +0200, The masked-coder known as Randux wrote:
> > Whilst pkgsrc works quite well for me on NetBSD (don't really recall
> > any major problems at all) it doesn't seem to be working very well on
> > OpenBSD 4.0.
> 
> It works better on NetBSD, DragonFly and a few other problems because
> people spend a lot of time maintaing "pkgsrc" on those platforms. The
> support for Solaris has been improved a lot during the last few month
> because a lot of people (developers *and* users) test it (e.g. by
> running bulk builds), submitting bug reports and contributing patches.
> Improving the OpenBSD support would require a similar effort.

First of all, I apologise to all if anything I've written was taken as a criticism of pkgsrc, that wasn't at all what I meant. I think pkgsrc is really keen and it works brilliantly on NetBSD. I like it quite a bit more than FreeBSD ports (think I did say that earlier).

If I used OpenBSD more perhaps I could help in the area you mentioned, but I use it the least of my current systems and I'm already over-extended in projects I'm working on (plus my own job ;) ).

Point taken, though, pkgsrc or anything else depends on people fixing it.

Now that I've learnt a bit more and it seems as pkgsrc really won't do what I want without bringing along something I don't want (multiple copies of many things) so I don't plan to continue using it on OpenBSD. In the beginning I was hoping it would be a quick way to get a few more recent things built on OpenBSD.

> > ... it's been repeatedly broken/fixed/broken/fixed since 2004 (gpgme) ...
> 
> Did you ever submit a problem report because of this?

No. Whilst searching the list archives I saw the history, so it seemed clear that everyone involved should already be aware that there's a problem  as numerous problem reports have been filed already. Either it's not a priority or it's now fixed everywhere else that people are using pkgsrc.

> 
> > ... and now firefox2 and sylpheed-claws (my main reasons for using
> > pkgsrc on OpenBSD) have just crashed.
> 
> Which could be a problem in "pkgsrc", a portability problem in the
> application or both. Nobody knows without a precise bug report.
> 
> So please start submitting bug reports now.

At the moment I've abandoned using pkgsrc on OpenBSD. If time permits I should like to help and now that someones said that they want problem reports I'll certainly submit any information I can to help in the future. 

Cheers,
Rand