ports updates

[Matthew Seaman]

On Sat, Oct 18, 2003 at 02:46:02PM -0200, jxz wrote:

> I'm considering upgrading from Linux to FreeBSD in my home machine. I
> have some doubts concerning the ports collection:
> 
> I would use the 4.8-RELEASE branch. The ports are stalled (just
> security upgrades) or they continue to be updated with new versions of
> the softwares? 
> 
> What are the updates policies of the ports collections on the other
> branches, where do I found more about it? 

ports do not have any special relation to any particular branch of the
OS.  There's just ports, which gets continually updated with maybe the
occasional hiatus right before new releases when a set of packages is
produced to go onto the release CDs

Don't confuse ports; which is a framework of makefiles and other
supporting material that makes it trivially easy to download source,
compile and install any software; with packages; which are the compiled
output of ports gathered together in a handy-to-install tar-ball.

As complete a set of packages as possible is produced to go with each
OS release, and if there's time available on the package building
cluster, updated packages will be produced when possible.  Given the
parallel release tracks of 4.x and 5.x at the moment, there hasn't
been much time to produce as many package updates as usual.

The typical way of using ports is described very well in a series of
onlamp articles by Dru Lavigne:

    http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/bsd/2003/08/07/FreeBSD_Basics.html
    http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/bsd/2003/08/28/FreeBSD_Basics.html
    http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/bsd/2003/09/18/FreeBSD_Basics.html

but the canonical instructions are at:

    http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/synching.html#CVSUP
    http://www.freebsd.org/ports/index.html

	Cheers,

	Matthew


-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
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