pkgsrc-Users archive


Re: pkgsrc quarterly vs. current?

"Thomas Mueller" <> writes:

> With pkgsrc, I believe stability would depend on the application in
> question rather than pkgsrc version, current or quarterly.

There are two separate issues.  One is that some upstream programs are
buggy, as you mention.  The other is that the process of expressing very
complciated dependency relationship is prone to errors; mistakes are
made at some rate, and fixed.  During freezes we endeavor to make very
few and concentrate on fixing.  So on a stable branch the odds that one
can type "make package-install" and have 100 dependent packages all
build ok is really quite high.

> With many Linux distributions, binary-based, packages are installed
> with the whole OS, and, except for security updates, only updated with
> each new release of the distribution.  Some users might feel fettered
> that way.

So that's basically like stable branches, except less often.

> What happens if one tries to build a package from pkgsrc quarterly
> that has subsequently been upgraded so that the distfile would no
> longer match?  Or does pkgsrc quarterly keep all distfiles on the
> NetBSD and mirror servers?  FreeBSD ports collection does not include
> distfiles, which must be fetched whenever a package is built.

Most distfiles are mirrored to, and 'make fetch' will look
there if the other places don't work.  But, some distfiles have licenses
that preclude redistribution.

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