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BSD Version Of Gentoo's Portage
eugene ts wong writes "Here is some good news for BSD users. Gentoo Weekly Newsletter has an article that says that there is a BSD version of portage. It's still in a developmental stage, but it's definitely making progress."
Most BSD users don't want this. Ports works quite well for us, thank you very much. Any shortcomings that Ports has, are being worked on.
1 of the things that I like about portage is the ease of use. You don't have to find dependencies. Nor do you have to find the web sites that host these packages. If you can find a place that's closer than the defaults, then you'll have the option of getting packages from there.
I think that these general advantages should be available all across the board for all OSes, unless of course there are specific needs for specific alternatives.
I'm not trying to start a flame war or anything. I'm just sharing my own likes & dislikes.
testing out my trending skills
The differences I've noted is that portage is upgraded every now and then which gives you the small trouble of running etc-update and upgrade it's config files. It might actually be broken at some times to.
Ports on the other side is rock solid and has been used for a much longer time. You can of course set compiler flags for ports to, and atleast for freebsd the upgrade tool is as good as the gentoo one. I do however like netbsds approch most since their pkgsrc seems most intelligent with their /usr/pkg path for everything installed from it. I must admit I don't know that much about their different port handling tools thought, I've mostly used make install.
The huge advantage of gentoos portage is the USE-flags, which I really like. Don't know if it would be hard to get the same functionallity in the BSDs without using portage, or if there already are a few alternatives which works almost the same way. Feel free to reply or e-mail me information about usefull ports tools if you have any.
As a FreeBSD user, my question is this: How exactly is this different from the ports tree? I thought that it was basically the same. I am glad to see somebody doing it, though.
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I can't see the difference. If anything pkg_add -r would almost be suprior
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The big question on my mind is "why?" Why would I want to use portage instead of ports? Why would I want to use a copy when I already have the original?
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I like the ports system n' all, but I certainly like portage a lot better. :)!
I for one am glad to see it
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I see absolutely zero need for Portage on any of the popular BSD systems, except for Mac OS X. Having it on Mac OS X would be much better than using Fink.
I use Fink now, but I don't have flexibility in deciding what features I wish to have compiled in to my software (at least, not that I am aware of).
FreeBSD has fewer buffer overflow exploits. It's that simple. Most BSD-based solutions (NetBSD & OpenBSD included) are considered more secure for server systems. Of course, application security is still an issue....
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Gentoo already forked; the coder base is split, though not sure about the user base.
ports vs. portage is a debate of utility. Its a meta-tool; how do I get the tools that I need in a better manner (* Better to be defined by the user). I sincerely doubt that the tipping point between selecting gentoo and FreeBSD is the difference in a metatool.
1) I shouldn't be answering to trolls, but the whole "my free x86 based UNIX OS that runs tons of software is SOOOO much better than your free x86 based UNIX OS that runs tons of software that you must be a luser and i rock!" thing is pathetically old. See a tree. Pet a dog. get laid. Get a life outside of petty arguments about free OSes showing "heh, I said BSD sucks, on a BSD FORUM, I sooooo rule".
2) FreeBSD is not about speed really, though it is fast, and in many ways faster than Linux. FreeBSD is about a system. Not a kernel with 24 vendor specific patches (I honestly can't read the patch version on my current RH kernel, nor do I bother to look it up) with a billion RPMs each with their own vendor specific patches or apt dpkges and a few tarballs here and there, but a cohesive system. The problem that "BSD SUXXORS" dorks have with FreeBSD is that its beauty is subtle; you don't really get it until you've had the system for a while and you realize how everything just feels right. They don't switch scheduler and VMs in the middle of a "stable" branch. They don't make you change firewall code with every major kernel release. It just works, and works well. If chasing every RPM, worrying abut what vendor has what is what you like doing, cool, go for it. But BSD users (like myself) will be quite happy with what we chose, for reasons you can't seem to understand.
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1 thing that I hope that they add is the abiblity to not update the entire portage tree. Otherwise, we are forced to download way too much data that we may never use, when all we want to do is update the packages that we have already.
testing out my trending skills
Portage doesn't replace makefiles, at least not the ones provided to build the actual program.
The FreeBSD's ports' Makefile basically sets a load of build/package organization variables, almost the same as a portage "ebuild" does. An ebuild is a script though. I've submitted a few when I was trying out Gentoo a while ago.
Portage just happens to be written in python (good choice BTW IMHO) whereas the traditional pkg-tools for FreeBSD are C based and the portupgrade utility is written in Ruby.
Portage was inspired by NetBSD's pkgsrc which was derived from FreeBSD ports. Flags like PROVIDES are similar to USE and somewhat comparable to FreeBSD's make options for ports e.g. "NO_GUI"=true and stuff like that. I do like the USE idea though.
The interesting thing about portage as a FreeBSD user is two sided really: the pro would be that the functionality of portupgrade would be part of the portmanager tool (portage) itself, the con is that *BSD (even Net) are not a kernel with packaged userland, it is a full (perhaps small though) OS and the hard thing is always where to draw the line and whether or not the base system can and should be put into packages/ports/ebuilds also. Like any OS Gentoo Linux needs a bootstrap and a chaintool too to build the rest. LFS'ish (quite easy though, they have good docs).
The Gentoo "rc scripts" are also very NetBSD inspired and recently FreeBSD has followed this approach, e.g. using PROVIDES, and BEFORE, etc.
My (rather short) experience with portage was that I liked it, but it's definately more geared towards a linux (kernel+tools+pkgs) system. It also broke quite frequently though. And of course, python is always nice, if only to unbreak little things easily (I'm not much of a C person).
preach on dude!
USE flags. Gimme USE flags and I will concur that ports are OK.
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As usual, when this comes up, let's plug NetBSD's Packages Collection. ``pkgsrc'', as it's known, originally derived from FreeBSD's ports is available for a large number of platforms (Netbsd, of course, and then Darwin, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, Solaris and Irix), thus allowing system administrators who have to take care of more than one OS to take advantage of its strengths. So, uhm, sorry, but I'd also have to add my vote to the ``who needs portage'' camp.
-- "Tradition is the illusion of permanence."
They don't make you change firewall code with every major kernel release.
:-)
Thankfully, it's FreeBSD you're talking about, and not another unnamed BSD system that I am aware of
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I don't know if you're implying that Debian is not a cohesive system by saying that FreeBSD doesn't have apt dpkges or whatever, but Debian is a cohesive system that doesn't change functionality in the middle of a stable branch. You don't have to chase packages around, they're easily downloaded and installed, and major upgrades are handled pretty seamlessly as well. It works and it works well. I'm sure there are other reasons why FreeBSD and Debian are better and worse than each other for different purposes, but Debian is not at fault for not being a cohesive, stable system.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
I know that, I just wanted to tell that portage didn't used Makefiles to make it work.
Portage was inspired by NetBSD's pkgsrc which was derived from FreeBSD ports. Flags like PROVIDES are similar to USE and somewhat comparable to FreeBSD's make options for ports e.g. "NO_GUI"=true and stuff like that. I do like the USE idea though.
I actually didn't thought about that possibility, even thought I've used it sometimes. But sure the USE-flags is more convenient. Will make for the BSD ports complain if the option isn't available? If not i suppose it would be quite easy to do your own script which just add the options you want in BSD aswell.
The Gentoo "rc scripts" are also very NetBSD inspired and recently FreeBSD has followed this approach, e.g. using PROVIDES, and BEFORE, etc.
Never heard of PROVIDES or BEFORE earlier, will ask google about that one.
Personally I like NetBSD most, but it got nothing with ports vs portage to do, it's just that all the BSDs got excellent documentation and that NetBSD has the files in intelligent places and that you don't have to upgrade the whole OS so often. OpenBSD is ok aswell but fails a little on the desktop side, and it's nice to see FreeBSD 5.x uses gcc 3.x now adays. Currently my machine runs gentoo since a half year or something because I bought a new one back then and wanted to try it out. We'll see then I have enough time and energy to switch back.
Who is going to meta-port the 7000 (or whatever it is) ports to whatever format portage needs it's information in and then keep them up to date?
_O_
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I have a cron job which does a daily cvsup and `portupgrade -aRr' (disclaimer: Doing this on a production server is a bad idea. Always check ports before deploying them. On a workstation, however, in the unlikely event that it breaks I can spend some time avoiding work while I figure out why:). The problem with this is that some ports (e.g. ghostscript and php) have curses based front-end for selecting make flags. This causes portupgrade to wait for user input (which never happens, since it is not run in a terminal). I would like to see each port which has tweakable options list these in a standard format. Then, a single tool could be used for editing them in an interactive way (rather than a separate, but identical interface for ports like ghostscript and php), and auto-update tools like portupgrade could remember the make settings for each port and reapply the same ones when it was upgraded.
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Not to forget about having to chase down the dependancies, hoping they're the right version, then chasing down the dependancies' depandancies, etc., etc., etc. That's one of the major reasons I chose to stay away from the RPM-based systems and went with FreeBSD. The ports tree gets the dependancies for you (if you are in a lazy enough mood to go that route) or the pkg_add gets them as well. It's a lot less of a headache to worry about "oops, I forgot this dependancy!". I personally think that the RPM users who are die hard "OMFGZORZ MY RPMS PWNZORZ UR SYSTEM" just think that they are cool because they know how to use a search engine and find the rpm they need and spend 12 hours hunting down everything needed to get something installed whereas a FreeBSD user would get the software installed and move on to things that are more important (ie: life away from hunting rpms). Just my 2 cents.
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I'm not sure about Debian, I haven't used it for some time now. But I do remember some horribly overengineered stupidities (like the "alternatives" system), so I wouldn't be surprised if they were guilty of that, too.
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"The BSD packages, and I guess this is true for gentoo and some other Linux-based systems as well, is that they mostly keep stuff as it was meant to be by the authors, except for patches neccessary to make it run at all."
/usr/local/mysql/libexec/bin/ or whatever?
Because BSD prefers being better for upstream maintainers than for end users. Why in the hell would I want to do a whereis every time I need to find some random binary that freebsd thinks should go in
In deb, everything goes in standardized paths to save the end user time.
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Did anybody tell the developers that we already have ports? (That they stole portage from, BTW). Wait, wait, we didn't have packages? No... I thought we had pkgsrc...
Why the hell do we need portage? We've already got our system. It works (for us) better than portage. We don't need it. Stop wasting your time.
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But the point is you don't have to rewrite all your filter rules every other minor release. Plus you get the benefit of choice. Win win.
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um... in FreeBSD one of their major philosophies is a consistent well defined file heirarchy. This is one of *most* BSD users complaints with Linux,there doesn't seem to be any standardized file structure which lends to chaos. It is my experiance that it is much easier to find binaries in FreeBSD (granted you do have to learn the system to start with) than in Linux Distros.
Why do you insist upon posting with out the facts? According to NetCraft Surveys (yes, I come from a world where we actually like to quote our sources.) Usage of the BSD's is actually increasing. And by most reports (including e-week, and linuxworld) *BSD's are more stable than any other system out there. Before you decide to make another idiot comment to make yourself feel better about who you are try to get the facts straight.
automated dependency resolution (and a lot more) for rpm based systems: Red Carpet
and if you need something that ximian doesn't have in their database you just pull it's dependency libraries from redcarpet and build it from an srpm. things definitely aren't as tough as they used to be
I have no experience with BSD, and I'm sure ports is great, but it isn't the only game in town anymore
Don't they already exist?
viper or something?
1. You can not play games on it. 2. It cannot be used by my grandma. 3. It lacks a GUI of any note. 4. There is no support available for it. 5. It is an assortment of fragmented OSes. 6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform. 7. You have to compile everything and know C. 8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor. 9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux. 10.It is dying. 1. Of course you can play games on it. 2. Sure it can. 3. You can use any popular GUI. wm, KDE, GNOME etc. 4. Are you too stupid to figure out mailing lists? 5. No, it's not. 6. Ehm. Yes it can. 7. Wrong again. 8. Sometimes. Same thing with any *NIX though. 9. ? Wrong wrong wrong. :(
10. Hah! Not hardly.
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Not to sound like a troll here, but i really dont see the point since we have a well-oiled ports system already?
If someone can explain a good reason, ficool.. but i as of yet, really dont see a point. And it can only cause issues. One nice thing about the ports tree, is its 'the' ports tree.. no confusion involved.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
How nice, to toss in an insult at the end.
That aside, if you had fully understood what I said. you would have realized I'm not against change. I just feel that there needs to be a valid case to consider it. I also clearly stated i did NOT know the portage system, thus looking for others to assist in the rational..
So far, you haven't given me any valid reasons, nor does the typical sounding Linux crowd's "you don't know what you are talking about so shut up" attitude that leaked thru doesn't help the case. That's one reason I left the Linux camp, after being in it since the very beginning on Usenet
Consistency and maturity are two of the main advantages of the BSD's.. The main reason I, and many others in the 'real' ( real, as in not hobby ) world have chosen or moved too, *BSD. ( and the license wars )
Fragmenting the 'ports' goes a long way to destroy that consistency, unless there is a damned good reason to do so.
Just because its 'new and improved' is NOT a reason to do it. This would bring the BSD's down to the level of today's Linux world, fragmented and convoluted, to the point of being a detriment.
Also keep in mind very few people actually understand how to use ports properly, which if done would most likely remove anyone's 'issues' with it. Its actually well thought out and extremely flexible, if used the right way.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Now having said that, I agree about FreeBSD. It does rock that it's one complete operating system. I do have to point out, however, that there's a much bigger difference between OpenBSD and FreeBSD than there is between, say, Red Hat and Slackware. At least between two Linux distributions most of the kernel is the same.
this is from a Gentoo, FreeBSD, and OS X user. No need for flames.
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If you prefer your sources un-tampered with as I do...mainstream distros aren't the way to go.
Sourcemage GNU/Linux might be more up your alley - from my experience, you "cast -c" a program, it downloads it from the program's main site and compiles it.
That's real nice, and why I'm moving from Head Rat to Sourcemage.
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TenDRA is the answer.
-uso.
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS