cvs commit: doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports/chapter.sgml

[Doug Barton]

Peter N. M. Hansteen wrote:
> "Simon L. Nielsen" <simon at FreeBSD.org> writes:
> 
>> Personally I think maneging ports is such an integral part of running
>> a FreeBSD system that it should be in the Handbook itself.  
> 
> FWIW, I agree with Simon here.  The ports+packages system is very much
> part of the daily care and feeding.  If this amounts to moving the
> description of how to install ports and maintain them on a running
> system out of the Handbook, I think it's not a very wise move.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that, I certainly am not. What I'm
saying is that including mini-manuals for all the various ports
management tools in the handbook is a bad idea. I think the problem is
where do we draw the line. You mentioned two issues, how to install
ports (which I don't think there is any dispute about) and how to
maintain them. If your idea of describing "how to maintain them" means
detailed descriptions of the operations of "how to maintain them" with
each of the tools available, then we disagree. I don't think that
scales, and I think it bloats the handbook with a lot of repetitive
information.

When I say "how to maintain them" I think we should describe in
general terms that there are various tools that can be used to do this
job, here is a little information about them, and here is where you
can find more detailed information.

If the consensus is that we should have the more detailed descriptions
in the handbook, I won't oppose that, I'll just ask that we extend
that courtesy to each of the management tools that are in the ports
collection. It would be nice if a few more people spoke up on this
issue though, so far the opinions have been limited to a few vocal folks.

BTW, it would be tempting to think that I'm whinging about this as the
author of portmaster, but I'm not. I don't even have a portmaster
section in there now, and I wasn't planning to add one. I just want to
make sure that however we resolve this it's in the best interest of
our users.

Doug

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