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FreeBSD Ports Tricks

Posted by michael on from the sit-up-and-beg dept.

BSD Forums writes "One of FreeBSD's biggest benefits is its ports collection. You can go years without learning more than just make install clean, but there are dozens of features built into the ports tools. OnLamp's Dru Lavigne demonstrates several of these tricks to simplify your life."

11 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. yes by Openadvocate · · Score: 4, Informative

    And you can even find the Bittorrent client.

    --
    my sig
    1. Re:yes by m0rten · · Score: 5, Informative
      Guys, what happens if I remove a piece of software after it's been installed and lots of other software depends on it. Will "Ports" warn me about what will break, or will it just go ahead and do it, and leave me scratching my head trying to figure out what happened?
      It will warn you that there are other ports depending on this port. However you can forcefully remove it if you wish (and then you're on your own..)
  2. Useful by billatq · · Score: 4, Informative

    These are pretty useful little tips, thought it looks like almost all of them are in the FreeBSD handbook already.

  3. Re:BSD is Dying by usotsuki · · Score: 4, Informative

    Maybe not but it sure as hell runs Debian!

    -uso.

    --
    Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
  4. Re:BSD is Dying by SiliconJesus101 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Well, actually it can in fact run quite a few Linux applications. A friend of mine (ack, how cliche') has a Quake III Arena server running on his BSD box and as far as I know most Linux ELF binaries can be coaxed to run on BSD without too much of a hassle (again from what my friend says).

    From http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/h andbook/linuxemu.html , actually it can in fact run quite a few Linux applications.

    "In a nutshell, the compatibility allows FreeBSD users to run about 90% of all Linux applications without modification. This includes applications such as Star Office, the Linux version of Netscape, Adobe Acrobat, RealPlayer 5 and 7, VMWare, Oracle, WordPerfect, Doom, Quake, and more. It is also reported that in some situations, Linux binaries perform better on FreeBSD than they do under Linux." "In a nutshell, the compatibility allows FreeBSD users to run about 90% of all Linux applications without modification. This includes applications such as Star Office, the Linux version of Netscape, Adobe Acrobat, RealPlayer 5 and 7, VMWare, Oracle, WordPerfect, Doom, Quake, and more. It is also reported that in some situations, Linux binaries perform better on FreeBSD than they do under Linux."

    --

    "The strong will do what they want, the weak will do what they must."
    -Thucydides

  5. Yes, FreeBSD does run Linux. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    The install process asks you: "Do you wish to enable Linux compatibility?"

    If you answer yes, it installs a loader that translates a Linux program's system calls into FreeBSD ones. It works rather well.

    I've personally run the Linux binaries of Unreal Tournament 2003 on FreeBSD 4.8 with full OpenGL 3D acceleration on my Pentium 3/800 with an NVidia GEForce 3. It ran better than the Windows version does on the same hardware.

    Many other 3D accelerated Linux games (like Quake 3) also run just fine under FreeBSD.

  6. Re:BSD is Dying by DrSkwid · · Score: 4, Informative

    why yes, it does

    which would you like ?

    Red Hat
    /usr/ports/emulators/linux_base-6/pkg-descr
    /usr/ports/emulators/linux_base-8/pkg-descr

    or

    Debian
    /usr/ports/emulators/linux_base-debian/pkg-descr
    --
    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
  7. I'm surprised no one has mentioned portupgrade... by Edward+Scissorhands · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's a great utility in the ports tree called portupgrade. It's very handy and allows for quick and easy upgrading of your ports.

    It lives in /usr/ports/sysutils/portupgrade

    Check it out. Start with the manual page (man portupgrade) after you install it, then use Google for more info. It's well worth it.

  8. Worthless page by bluGill · · Score: 4, Informative

    That page is almost worthless. Don't waste your time reading it, the only tip worth anything is the one about doing a "make readmes". Everything else is better accomplished by using the portupgrade scripts.

    Trust me on this one, once you use portupgrade you will not go back to the pkg_* commands.

  9. Portupgrade! by Piquan · · Score: 4, Informative

    Every FreeBSD admin should know about portupgrade.

    It's in ports. It has several tools. One of them, portupgrade, upgrades ports. Another, pkgdb, fixes your ports db by updating out-of-date deps, merging multiple versions of the same port, etc. A third, pkg_version, is like port_version but much faster. A fourth, portsclean, cleans any debris from using ports, such as outdated shared libs.

    Get it. Learn it. Love it.

    1. Re:Portupgrade! by bmah · · Score: 4, Informative

      > A third, pkg_version, is like port_version but much faster.

      Actually, pkg_version is in the base system, portversion is the program that comes with portupgrade.

      portversion is faster because it relies on a database of installed packages, whereas pkg_version depends only on knowing what ports are installed (via pkg_info) plus either an up-to-date ports tree or an INDEX file. Both are useful IMHO.

      But I agree with the general sentiment...the whole portupgrade package is extremely useful, and it's one of the first things that goes on a system that I install if I think I'll ever be upgrading ports on it.