I know this has probably been asked and answered a million times and it's in the handbook, too, but It's 2020, and I've been running FreeBSD on and off for a decade or so. I've run it at home as a server for most of that time and so I have the ability to configure stuff and keep it running. Now, I'm running it on my T430 as a desktop... well, I prefer the console, so it's TWM most of the time, but I do have KDE installed. I'm trying to get to where I'm running FreeBSD 80% of the time (It's really, really hard to give up my Mac OS world). As part of my transition, I'm trying to decide if I need ports for anything beyond the occasional "there's no package for X, so let's install the port for X," which is what I do these days, and it's as confusing today as it was a decade ago. So, here's the updated question(s) I've been thinking about:
1. In y'all's varied opinions, what are the tradeoffs to using ports or packages in the modern era?
2. Is it reasonable to use ports for everything except KDE/X/other honking big packages?
3. Should one stick to one or the other, or is it fine to mix the two willy-nilly?
4. How long does it take (roughly) on a modern workstation type laptop (not a chromebook) with SSD to
Really, I'm just trying to wrap my brain around why a desktop user/aspiring power user would build ports from source that take hours to compile vs a few minutes to install from packages?
Is that/should that be the main differentiator?
1. In y'all's varied opinions, what are the tradeoffs to using ports or packages in the modern era?
2. Is it reasonable to use ports for everything except KDE/X/other honking big packages?
3. Should one stick to one or the other, or is it fine to mix the two willy-nilly?
4. How long does it take (roughly) on a modern workstation type laptop (not a chromebook) with SSD to
portmaster print/tex-live
?Really, I'm just trying to wrap my brain around why a desktop user/aspiring power user would build ports from source that take hours to compile vs a few minutes to install from packages?
Is that/should that be the main differentiator?