Re: Real life use of pkgsrc from a happy user

[Hasso Tepper <hasso%netbsd.org@localhost>]

Dave Vollenweider wrote:
> There are a lot of wonderful variables and helper programs in pkgsrc
> that, unfortunately, aren't documented outside of this mailing list. 
> Maybe if we changed that more people would be willing to use pkgsrc.  I
> know I wouldn't have known what USE_DESTDIR does, let alone started to
> use it, if I hadn't been subscribed to this list.  The same with
> pkg_rolling-replace.  It seems to me that newcomers to pkgsrc might be
> more willing to stick with it if they knew about these things.

All these variables don't help you much if you want just painless upgrade. 
All (yes, I really mean it) upgrade methods in pkgsrc are much (yes, I 
really mean this as well) more complicated than they should be. There are 
hundreds of ways to break things during upgrade form both source and 
binary packages - major bumps of libraries alone can cause major 
problems.

And in fact I agree - why the hell all upgrade methods from binary 
packages remove packages at first?

There is a lot to do to make pkgsrc really usable from nowadays standards 
point of view.


-- 
Hasso Tepper