Brave New PKGBASE World

[fmc000]

While I agree with what You wrote - please keep in mind that Yampress is more at the beginning of his FreeBSD mastery - not at the end. He was asking - not judging. He just seeks answer that FreeBSD project did not directly defined.

I even tried more then once to ask them to include the PKGBASE upgrade/update instructions into the 'announcement' - no success from my side thou ...

- https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-stable/2025-November/003550.html

Well, maybe it's just me but when I ask for something I tend not to use expressions like

introducing pkgbase is pointless.

or

It's a useless idea for the sake of it. Art for art's sake.

especially when you use wrong examples to prove your point. But again, maybe it's just me.

 

[vermaden]

He will learn ... sometimes it takes more time then it should.

 

[vermaden]

Brave New World? Probably better than 99.99% of music ever released.
Vermaden using it as a title for pkgbase article makes me pretty optimistic for the pkgbase.

To be honest - I just fucking love the 'Brave New World' track from this record. I believe only the 'Blood Brothers' and 'The Wicker Man' can only compete with it.

... and yes - with all its current potential drawback I believe that PKGBASE is the future and the way to go and that it will be the thing that we will be thankful that it happened. Its just takes time to work out all the nuances and status quo's to work out in the best possible way.

 

[Yampress]

I've spent most of my life on Debian Linux.
Updating to the chosen version is incredibly simple.
A small change to the repository configuration entries, executing two commands:

apt update && apt dist-upgrade

And if there are no conflicts, the system will update to the release specified in the configuration.

Release 15.0-RELEASE is practically a month away, and there's no documentation on how to update the system to the specified release. If someone has already decided to switch to pkgbase (without creating a system backup using beadm), all that's left is to compile the entire system for the desired release.

I debated for a long time whether to switch to pkgbase at this stage. I decided to do so, following Vermaden's recipe: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2025/07/20/freebsd-pkgbase-pkgbasify-tool/ . And since Vermaden uses it, it must be something good and sensible.
The conversion went without a hitch. But after the fact, I started wondering what to do next with the system.
What are the current mechanisms for getting the desired release? It's a good thing I made the changes on my home desktop system to see how it works . So, there wouldn't be any major losses if something went wrong.

PS.
Iron Maiden -> Fear of the dark....
Iron Maiden -> The writing on the wall
Iron Maiden -> Hallowed by the name
]:>

 

[gnath]

To upgrade I just followed the pkgbase wiki page (I'm unfortunately in a hospital bed for the second time in as many months, so I don't have any instructions with me). It's really nothing special.

Hope you will get well soon. The pkgbasify tool and subsequent conversion and further upgrades are very easy for those who have spent some time on system other than DE. It is not about most people like this but some others who will try or want FBSD as their main drive. Sure it will evolve to final shape by 16-R. For that opinions and related problem are needed for deves. I have dbg and lib32 packages which was not there in my systems.

pkg.conf and remove the compat-libs package

I have not deleted pkg.conf as it contain some aliases. Unfortunately I could not deleted compat-libaries , my bad. I shall manage that by my own as I am using a great free OS. Most of the users other than developers do not mind the base or base-meta and still use UFS file systems.

 

[W.hâ/t]

I've spent most of my life on Debian Linux.
Updating to the chosen version is incredibly simple.

I have to agree with fmc000 here, even if it's a bit rough. FreeBSD is easy to upgrade too. There's just a major change in the process that is not yet documented in the handbook, for a release that is not out. Either you play with it and risk crashing your system (or just VM), or you wait until it's out and well documented.

There's no justification for complaining here. If there's a bug or you find errors, you're welcome to report them.

 

[Emrion]

FreeBSD is easy to upgrade too.

I would write was, if the future is really to have no choice but leave pkgbase to rule the system. I hope that meanwhile, some scripts will be released to simplify the upgrade process with pkgbase.

Actually, that makes me think an OS upgrade under debian where you obliged to edit several config files before to proceed (to such an extent that you're advised to use a sed command to not forget something).

 

[rbranco]

Brave New World? Probably better than 99.99% of music ever released.
Vermaden using it as a title for pkgbase article makes me pretty optimistic for the pkgbase.

The album is better than the previous albums with Blaze Bayley, yes.

But the title to me is associated with Aldous Huxley's book which is a dystopia, so I thought the article was critical of pkgbase.

 

[W.hâ/t]

I would write was

I don't think you understand the potential of pkgbase. It's still learning to walk here.

I don't have to create src.conf for specific jails/vms or have a full base system just to run a single service. I can just build one repo with poudriere (or use FreeBSD's) and update all my systems to my liking. I just have a wrapper (not yet finished) that does the update for all my systems.

That's for my simple use case. I'm more curious to know what it will change for sysadmins that use many jails/vms/systems and their management tools.

Overall, from my tiny point of view, it will be easier to manage and will help with resources consumption/managment.

 

[Emrion]

To upgrade I just followed the pkgbase wiki page

I just tried anew. I started from a 14.3-RELEASE up-to-date pkgbasified (with the provided lua script). This is a VM with a functional XFCE4. I did env ABI=FreeBSD:15:amd64 pkg-static upgrade outside Xorg (system rebooted in console).

pkg-static crashed at:

[1018∕1466] Upgrading perl5 from 5.40.3_2 to 5.42.0_1...
pkg-static: sqlite error while executing BEGIN IMMEDIATE TRANSACTION in file pkgdb.c: 1206: cannot start a transaction within a transaction

I rebooted, ran again this command. Upgrade was finished. It's ok, 15-STABLE but as you may guess, XFCE4 is not working anymore. I saw it deinstalled xorg-server, lol. I won't have the patience to mend the damages. So, let's reset this VM before pkgbase.

 

[Emrion]

I don't think you understand the potential of pkgbase. It's still learning to walk here.

On the contrary I saw what are the benefits. I'm just saying it's not ready.
See here, my first try and comments: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/future-upgrade-from-14-x-to-15-pkgbase.98690/#post-710548

I wait the moment when it will be usable with a minimum trust because I will have to change a fair portion of my jails management scripts.

 

[W.hâ/t]

I would write was, if the future is really to have no choice but leave pkgbase to rule the system.

On the contrary I saw what are the benefits. I'm just saying it's not ready.
See here, my first try and comments: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/future-upgrade-from-14-x-to-15-pkgbase.98690/#post-710548

I don't understand your statements then. This seems contradictory to me.

Upgrade instructions can be found here

 

[gnath]

Simply use pkg upgrade -r repository for a running system same as before, no problem. Manual modification is required only for minor and major upgrades.

XFCE4 is not working anymore

The meta package xfce is now not in the package repo. but you can still use it if installed . You can not install it also.

 

[Emrion]

Simply use pkg upgrade -r repository for a running system same as before, no problem. Manual modification is required only for minor and major upgrades.

The meta package xfce is now not in the package repo. but you can still use it if installed . You can not install it also.

VM already wiped. I will wait until 15.0-RELEASE is out.

 

[hpnothp]

Original article here. Consider this when replying. FreeBSD, The FreeBSD Foundation, and The FreeBSD Forums are not associated with the content of this article.

Hello! You forget to mention your own blog post that clearly bashes having packages for base system: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/

Base System​

When you install a Linux system its just a bunch of RPM or DEB packages. For example of you install CentOS 7.8 Minimal variant you end up with several hundred RPM packages installed. After a week or month many of these packages will get updates sometimes making this CentOS system unusable or even unbootable (recent GRUB Boothole problem for example). On the contrary FreeBSD comes with a Base System concept.

So could you please elaborate what is your consistent stance on that subject?

 

[vermaden]

So could you please elaborate what is your consistent stance on that subject?

What I meant that on Linux system there is just one flat repository for everything. FreeBSD with PKGBASE still have pkg sets and vital packages and a different repository for Base System. If FreeBSD would be the same as Linux - all of the packages - both Base System and third party packages will be in one repo w/o any PKGBASE pkg sets and w/o Base System vital packages. I would prefer to have separate pkgbase(8) command for PKGBASE packages and pkg(8) command for third party packages - but that concept was not liked by the FreeBSD developers as they wanted to have everything managed by one pkg(8) command.

Maybe its a good idea to add at least one sentence about PKGBASE into the Quare FreeBSD article ... I will do that later.

EDIT: Added.

 

[gnath]

VM already wiped

I have two VMs and one on metal. Had no problem for upgrades. However pkgbasify tool would have modify the pkg.conf as required and have .pkgsave for reference.