ports/164826: handbook ports page does not suggest config-recursive which should be a standard suggestion as it saves huge time

[Peter Maloney]

>Number:         164826
>Category:       ports
>Synopsis:       handbook ports page does not suggest config-recursive which should be a standard suggestion as it saves huge time
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-ports-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          doc-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Mon Feb 06 14:40:09 UTC 2012
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Peter Maloney
>Release:        8.2-STABLE csup'd at 20110927
>Organization:
Brockmann Consult
>Environment:
FreeBSD bczfsvm1.bc.local 8.2-STABLE-20110927 FreeBSD 8.2-STABLE-20110927 #0: Thu Jan 26 12:07:29 UTC 2012     root at bcnas1bak.bc.local:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64
>Description:
Installing ports is very time consuming, and since they are probably used to binary distribution systems, new users may be discouraged from using FreeBSD if done wrong. The handbook does not suggest usage of "make config-recursive" to speed things up. Instead it suggests only "make install", which means there will be long pauses between user interaction. When there are many dependencies, this makes building a single port a huge hassle.

eg.

cd /usr/ports/emulators/virtualbox-ose
make install
download... wait...
menu pops up:
        ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
        │               Options for virtualbox-ose 3.2.12_1                  │
        │ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
        │ │      [X] QT4             Build with QT4 Frontend               │ │
        │ │      [ ] DEBUG           Build with debugging symbols          │ │
        │ │      [X] GUESTADDITIONS  Build with Guest Additions            │ │
        │ │      [X] DBUS            Build with D-Bus and HAL support      │ │
        │ │      [ ] PULSEAUDIO      Build with PulseAudio                 │ │
        │ │      [X] X11             Build with X11 support                │ │
        │ │      [X] VDE             Build with VDE support                │ │
        │ │      [X] VNC             Build with VNC support                │ │
        │ │      [X] WEBSERVICE      Build Webservice                      │ │
        │ │      [X] NLS             Native language support               │ │
        │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
        │                                                                    │

User must hit "OK"
download... wait...
menu pops up:
        │                    Options for glib 2.26.1_1                       │
        │ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
        │ │            [X] COLLATION_FIX  fix string collation             │ │
        │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │

User must hit "OK"
download... wait...
menu pops up

etc. etc. At least 12 times.

So it is better to instead do:
    make config-recursive
then do all the selections and "OK" in one batch, then
    make install clean

Please add that to the handbook.

>How-To-Repeat:
a new FreeBSD user reads http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports-using.html

Then they type the following commands:
# cd /usr/ports/emulators/virtualbox-ose
# make install clean
>Fix:
Add another note to handbook, right after "Note: You can save two extra steps by just running make install clean instead of make, make install and make clean as three separate steps."

[addthis]
When installing a port, using only "make install" from the beginning means there will potentially be many waiting periods between user interaction. When there are many dependencies, this sometimes makes building a single port a huge hassle. To avoid this, first run "make config-recursive" to do the configuration in one batch. Then run "make install [clean]" afterwards.
[/addthis]

Another alternative to the above handbook change would be to add a new target, maybe named "install-recursive" that is the same as "make config-recursive install", and add that in the handbook, replacing "install"

>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: