The Ports collection / FreeBSD CDs

[Donald J. O'Neill]

Perry Hutchison wrote:
>>> ... at least in my recent experience, an up-to-date ports tree 
>>> does not always play nicely with a not-updated base install from    
>>> CD.
>> That's very interesting. However, the ports tree on the CD isn't
>> complete, as in: not all the ports are there.
> 
> Any idea why?  (I am referring to the ports tree itself, i.e. the
> collection of skeleton directories.  The set of distfiles provided
> on CDs 3 and 4 is necessarily incomplete, both due to limited space
> and because some distfiles have legal restrictions that prevent 
> their inclusion.)
> 
>> I stopped installing the ports tree from the install CD a long
>> time ago for that reason.
> 
> Perhaps sysinstall's rather strong recommendation to install the
> ports ought to be toned down a bit, e.g. to suggest installing
> the ports from CD only if one does not have a high-speed Internet
> connection.
> 

You've asked a question, given some clarification as to what you are 
referring to, and I can tell you I don't have anything other than 
possibilities - which may be far from the truth - as to why this is. 
You're referring to a 4 CD set, that can't be downloaded from 
FreeBSD.org, that has to come from somewhere else, such as the
FreeBSD Mall or somewhere else. I would use that if I couldn't connect 
to the Internet at all.

Maybe, I should say: I can't tell you why it is that way. I've never 
been very concerned about it, just understood that it was that way and 
lived with it. I've never had a problem with an up-to-date ports tree 
not playing nicely with a RELEASE or a STABLE install. I suspect the 
reason is that I just never happened to up-date the ports tree at a time 
when there were problems. It does happen at times, but then... You've 
probably heard the advice "somethings wrong with your ports tree, blow 
it off and re-install it." It's not a big problem to deal with, the 
problem comes when you need to do it and don't.

Sysinstall only asks if you want to install the ports tree. If I was 
going to update it with cvsup, I would install it from there. I use 
portsnap, so I don't install it from the CD.


Yes, I have a hi-speed connection. It makes things easier. I wouldn't be 
without it.

Don