[PC-BSD Testing] Testing Digest, Vol 26, Issue 26

[Kris Moore]

Ian Robinson wrote:
>   4. Re: Runports (root) Make Update (Solved) (Sander Holthaus)
>>   7. Re: Runports (root) Make Update (Solved) (Kris Moore)
>>  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Message: 4
>> Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:37:16 +0100
>> From: Sander Holthaus <info at 2insite.nl>
>>
>> On 17-3-2009 13:28, Ian Robinson wrote:
>>> I attempted a few more times yesterday, each time stopping on ORBit2
>>> part of the install.
> 
> 
> 
>> The ports tree can "break" occasionally, usually because something is
>> wrong with the dependencies or the ports-database is not up-to-date.
>>
> 
> 
>>> 2.  What exactly does the "make" command do?  Does it compile a
>>> database of ports or install certain key ports into the PCBSD ports tree?
> 
> 
>> It depends where the make command is given and what the arguments are.
>> Best read up on it in the FreeBSD handbook, while make is quite a simple
>> command, the various arguments and uses make it a bit complex.
>> 4.  What is up with the having to make numerous inputs at the blue
>>> options screens -- that slows down the installation and requires the
>>> user to sit for hours watching the install.
> 
> 
>> Than you shouldn't use the ports tree / compile things. The reason
>> people use ports instead of packages is that you can set all these
>> options. You only need to do it once however. The ports tree is really
>> meant for more advanced uses, for normal installs of ports, use packages
>> (though I don't know how PCBSD deals with those).
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 7
>> Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:24:28 -0400
>> From: Kris Moore <kris at pcbsd.com>
>>
>>
>> Sander Holthaus wrote:
>>> On 17-3-2009 13:28, Ian Robinson wrote:
>>>> I attempted a few more times yesterday, each time stopping on ORBit2
>>>> part of the install.
>>> The ports tree can "break" occasionally, usually because something is
>>> wrong with the dependencies or the ports-database is not up-to-date.
>> Thats right, often things in the ports tree are broken, so its best to
>> update it often and see if that fixes the bug :)
>>
>>
>>>> 4.  What is up with the having to make numerous inputs at the blue
>>>> options screens -- that slows down the installation and requires the
>>>> user to sit for hours watching the install.
>>> Than you shouldn't use the ports tree / compile things. The reason
>>> people use ports instead of packages is that you can set all these
>>> options. You only need to do it once however. The ports tree is really
>>> meant for more advanced uses, for normal installs of ports, use packages
>>> (though I don't know how PCBSD deals with those).
>> Correct, also if you want to get rid of the blue options screen, edit
>> /etc/make.conf and uncomment BATCH=yes, this makes it take all the
>> defaults. Also through the "makeports" option, you can use pkg_add if
>> you like at the same time. You'll want to refer to the FreeBSD docs for
>> usage on this.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Kris Moore
>> PC-BSD Software
>> http://www.pcbsd.com
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
> 
> 
> THANK YOU Sander and Kris.
> 
> I update my ports tree frequently -- every couple of days -- and it never
> ceases to amaze me how busy the ports committers are because of the number
> of updates available each time.  No matter how recently I may have updated,
> I always update ports immediately before installing anything from ports or
> before using portupgrade.  Here, I upgraded each time before working with
> runports.
> 
> Perhaps the difference between success and failure was a day or two and a
> broken port or its dependency on the first two tries.  On the other hand,
> perhaps runports would not complete because at some of the screens I chose a
> couple of options other than the defaults.  The successful install was
> nothing but the defaults.
> 
> Although I know what a makefile is and does, and in many cases, I can read
> what's inside them effectively, what I did not know was where was this
> global "make" coming from.  It was not like I was in a ports subdirectory
> running make install clean on the resident makefile.  So, I was referring
> not to makefiles in general, but to this one in particular.  Thank you Kris
> for the direction.
> 
> It has only been lately (last several days) that I have ever recall seeing
> the blue option screens while processing ports (other than using
> sysinstall).  At first I thought it was because 7.1 is in beta.  However, I
> was running portupgrade on one of my 1.5.1 installations and I was seeing
> the option screen there too.  I am grateful to know that I can run
> unattended jumping past the defaults by tweaking /etc/make.conf.
> 
> Kris -- Is the runports make because of the new arrangement separating
> /usr/ports from PCBSD installed ports, and will all users have to compile
> that after installation.

Correct! What were doing now really hasn't been done in FreeBSD before, 
that is using two separate LOCALBASE's simultaneously. The runports 
command is just a small shell script which unsets some variables, and 
changes the PATH in order to ensure that your port builds don't conflict 
with apps in /PCBSD/local incorrectly.

If you want to actually see what the script does, take a look at this file:

/PCBSD/Scripts/runports.sh

I'm probably going to update "runports" a bit more today, so that you 
can also do this:

% runports /usr/local/bin/firefox

That'll let you call programs in /usr/local/bin or elsewhere with the 
runports variables, so they appear to be running on a fresh FreeBSD 
system, no /PCBSD/local conflicting.

> Ian Robinson
> Salem, Ohio