meta-ports (was: FreeBSD for Linux users)

[Mark Linimon]

>
>
>I don't know if there's a meta-port that includes them all or not, but it
>probably wouldn't hurt to have one.
>
I keep thinking about advocating more meta-ports, and possibly even 
proposing a virtual
category named "meta" (or some such) to group them in.  Having such a 
virtual category
would, IMHO, help any new FreeBSD user, not just ones coming over from a 
Linux
distro.  For example, I can easily imagine a new user wandering around, 
lost, in the many
x11/* ports, and wondering where in the heck you're supposed to start.

For example, one could argue that the the following could be included in 
such a category:

  textproc/docboook
  texptroc/docproj
  x11/XFree86-4
  x11/gnome2
  x11/gnome2-fifth-toe
  x11/kde

There are others that could easily be included in this list, but I've 
picked the ones
that IMHO represent the clearest argument for creating such a thing.

>Speaking of which, instant-workstation 
>is seemingly another thing that would make linux users from most distros
>feel at home, albeit a bloated and crowded home.
>
Well, instant-workstation could probably use some updating; I don't know if
grog has really looked at it for a while.  If there were the kind of virtual
category discussed above, it might encourage more people to take a look
at instant-workstation, and possibly creating metaports for their own 
favorite sets.
(Mine would be 'port maintainance tools' including portupgrade and friends).

mcl