Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

[Daniel Kalchev]

On 02.06.12 12:42, Erich Dollansky wrote:
> On 02 June 2012 AM 9:14:28 Chris Rees wrote:
>> On Jun 2, 2012 4:04 AM, "Erich Dollansky"<erich at alogreentechnologies.com>
>> wrote:
>>> But I have to mention one disadvantage. The ports are in no way linked to
>> the releases. This leads to situations in which a small change in a basic
>> library will result in a complete update of the installed ports. I
>> expressed this already many time here. It would be of advantage if the
>> ports tree would also have tags like the base system itself.
>> Unfortunately this is a massive amount of extra work - we only just keep up
>> with updates as it is.
> I do not think so. At least not for the first step as I see it. Just make snapshots of the ports tree when the release comes out. These snapshots are with the releases anyway.
>
> What I did was very simple. I got the ports tree that comes with the release and installed the system back to the release status. Ok, it was some work for me - maybe not for others - to find this tree.
>
> A simple link could help here.
>
> I do not know if this is just an opinion which is too optimistic.
>


But this functionality is already here. As I mentioned earlier, FreeBSD 
is not an end-user product, but rather a software platform and a kit 
that you can use to assemble pretty much what you can imagine.

Here is one example, how to handle the 'port problem'. The example is 
with BSDRP: http://bsdrp.net/

This is an nanoBSD based system, that you can build yourself. For 
example, the 31 May 2012 svn code sets this environment variable
PORTS_DATE="date=2012.05.31.00.00.00"
to pull the ports tree with that particular date (when it was tested to 
build sucessfuly)
It then proceeds to download it's own copy of /usr/src and /usr/ports 
and uses these to build the complete installation. More or less, 
controlled environment.

The /usr/src of -stable/-current and /usr/ports are in fact moving 
target. If you are uncomfortable with that, just sync to some date and 
you will have that date's snapshot and therefore known state. Most 
people who are bitten by the 'sudden change in ports' are just ignoring 
this option.

You don't have to use the (arguable old) 'release' ports tree. Ports get 
fixed/adapted for the new version usually months after release.

Daniel