Do I want to switch to the new pkg(8) format?

[Warren Block]

On Fri, 26 Dec 2014, Dutch Ingraham wrote:

> Once you have a current tree, there are generally three ways to build
> the port (i.e., make a binary, executable "package" out of it): make (1), the 
> portmaster (8) tool, or the portupgrade tool.  They are not mutually 
> exclusive, i.e., you can install a port with <cd /usr/ports/category/port && 
> make install clean> then later upgrade it with <portmaster category/port>.

Right.  Really, all that portmaster or portupgrade do is automate some 
of the steps.

Both of these tools grew out of the problem of upgrading.  When there 
are several things to upgrade, packages which are required by the others 
must be upgraded first.  portmaster/portupgrade sort out the 
dependencies and build the requirements in the right order.  They do 
that by using the standard port make targets.  In fact, it is possible 
to get them to show a list of what they would do, and then do it by 
hand yourself.  What I'm trying to say is that they automate the 
process, but it is still the ports system that is doing the building.