Re: The ports are really funcional?

On Sun, 30 Oct 2011 22:36:44 -0400, Alejandro Imass wrote:
> For very large packages such as the graphics system, open or libre
> office etc. it's much better to use binary versions via pkg_add. It's
> a waste of time to compile these very large suites and most of the
> time you will get the config options wrong, and they take forever to
> compile.

Exceptions:

1) You need language-specific settings.
   Example: OpenOffice in German.

2) You need others than the default options, e. g. if you
   want to include or exclude some stuff.
   Example: OpenOffice without KDE.

3) You need options to be set at compile time that do differ
   from the default options from which the binary packages
   are made, or because of "artificially shit in your pants"
   legal requirements and restrictions.
   Example: mplayer with mencoder and all (!) codecs

4) You need to speed up things to make them run on older
   hardware, and you fight for every optimization.
   Example: mplayer's RUNTIME_CPU_DETECTION.

But this is, I think, a case for 1% of users only. You
hardly need to do that. In most cases, the default options
are fine, and the binary packages just work.

> For things you want to tailor and optimize to your needs then use the
> ports system. FBSD is so cool that it doesn't matter if you install
> one way or the other and you can use almost all methods
> interchangeably.

A managament tool (such as portmaster or portupgrade) helps
to keep an eye on dependencies when using the many possible
ways.

-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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