Handbook 4.2 - ports overview

[Marc Fonvieille]

On Wed, Aug 18, 2004 at 09:12:29AM -0400, Leonard Zettel wrote:
> On Wednesday 18 August 2004 08:08 am, Oliver Eikemeier wrote:
> > Leonard Zettel wrote:
> > > Well, this struggling newbie, using vanilla stuff lying around,
> > > has managed to get at least three examples of what he would
> > > call ports trees on his system.  One is for executables, and
> > > two are connected with documentation. This led me to say
> > > "a".
> >
> > Hmmm... sorry, I don't get it. How do they differ?
> >
> First, I apologize for not saying earlier "thank you for your Interest"
> (and patience with an ignorant newbie).
> 
> On my system at the moment
> /usr/ports contains make files used to build executables.
> /usr/doc contains make files that build documentation.
> /usr/www contains make files that build documentation related to
> the FreeBSD web site.
> 
> I guess it boils down to whether "ports tree" means "something
> that builds system executables" or "something that contains make
> files". If the former, then is /usr/doc a doc tree?  Is there
> a community consensus on these terms?

"The FreeBSD Ports Collection", the ports tree, etc.  It's "the" since
it's FreeBSD's one, a particular one.  Using "a" makes me thing there
are many ports tree.

Marc