FreeBSD 9 from a linux (Debian) user

Just installed FreeBSD 9 on a spare laptop.
So far I like it a great deal but still tinkering under the hood
being acommand line sorta guy.
Still need to get used to the ports rather than *deb or *rpms
Keep up the good work!
 
Ports are better.
1. You can edit the makefile.
2. If you have built from source before, then you will feel at home.

The pkgng is for a "quick" install of software. For the standard architectures- AMD64, i386, pc98- this will work; however, for RISC architectures, pkgng will need a lot of work.
 
I'm a Gentoo user mostly, but I've used all *BSD flavors from time to time. I've seen other linux systems also, at least the most popular. I *never* encountered a precompiled, package manager that can match debian's. *NEVER* .. lacks of flexibility and some tasks like kernel-recompile under debian are absurdly trivial, I don't know wtf do the devs have in their minds... but apt-get's efficiency is unparalleled.

So please, don't even compare FreeBSD lame pkg_add or even the pkgng to apt-get, it's a lost cause. FreeBSD's strength lies in the ports, where flexibility can be a virtue :) and of course, the way the system is designed is much more clear and straight-forward than Leenoux. Another thing to follow is the magical handbook!

my 2 cents plz
 
plumguy,

I have also recently (about 6 months) moved my Debian server to FreeBSD.

I found that ports are more flexible than Debian's APT because APT doesn't give you the option when installing a package, and compiling from source was a pain at lease for me.

But FreeBSD ports gives me more control over my software installation, which I like and in my opinion is very important for maintaining a server.

If you keep trying learning on ports system, you will be familiar in no time.

If I can do it anyone can do it....:\

Good Luck.
 
If you want to have the best of both worlds build your own pkgng repository. It's fairly easy to setup. The added benefit is that you can screw up the build halfway through without ever wrecking your other machines.
 
I concur. I came from Debian Wheezy and the change is very fun. The only issue I have ever had is hardware every other application level desire is fulfilled. Also ports/jails are very fun to mess around with.

�jr
 
I recently install FreeBSD 9.1RC2 and pkgng. pkgng is impressive indeep. It's easy and saving times to build. But ports are very good for me. I can re-use distfiles from my laptop to my desktop pc if I want to install them when slow Internet connection and offline at all. For that reason, I always install them from /usr/ports.

Long Life FreeBSD!!! :)
 
atmosx said:
I'm a Gentoo user mostly, but I've used all *BSD flavors from time to time. I've seen other linux systems also, at least the most popular. I *never* encountered a precompiled, package manager that can match debian's. *NEVER* .. lacks of flexibility and some tasks like kernel-recompile under debian are absurdly trivial, I don't know wtf do the devs have in their minds... but apt-get's efficiency is unparalleled.

So please, don't even compare FreeBSD lame pkg_add or even the pkgng to apt-get, it's a lost cause. FreeBSD's strength lies in the ports, where flexibility can be a virtue :) and of course, the way the system is designed is much more clear and straight-forward than Leenoux. Another thing to follow is the magical handbook!

my 2 cents plz

I have worked on Debian systems in business / production environments for years, and seen apt screw up so badly on several occasions. pkg_* are simple tools and do their jobs. pkgng seems good, however the official repository (still marked as beta) is out of date with ports, and lacks some packages.
 
Zare said:
I have worked on Debian systems in business / production environments for years, and seen apt screw up so badly on several occasions. pkg_* are simple tools and do their jobs. pkgng seems good, however the official repository (still marked as beta) is out of date with ports, and lacks some packages.

I never said that apt-get never fails. I said that pkg_tools are not by any means comparable to apt-get and I really believe that. Neither freebsd tools is comparable to portage either imho. But ports are more than decent for me at least.

Just a question because, you seem reversing a bit the text: are you claiming that you keep a production system up and running using pkg_tools? Have you *ever* do it? If yes, I'm a fan! I can't run my 80 EUR embedded server just by using pkg_add, keeps mixing versions (even without messing with freebsd ports).
 
atmosx said:
I never said that apt-get never fails. I said that pkg_tools are not by any means comparable to apt-get and I really believe that. Neither freebsd tools is comparable to portage either imho. But ports are more than decent for me at least.

Just a question because, you seem reversing a bit the text: are you claiming that you keep a production system up and running using pkg_tools? Have you *ever* do it? If yes, I'm a fan! I can't run my 80 EUR embedded server just by using pkg_add, keeps mixing versions (even without messing with freebsd ports).

So what is the issue with pkg_tools? How recent were they added to FreeBSD as well? Also do you feel portage is superior to /usr/ports?
 
jwele said:
So what is the issue with pkg_tools? How recent were they added to FreeBSD as well?
I don't exactly call FreeBSD 2.0 (1994) recent.
 
The biggest issue with them is the very fragile /var/db/pkg package database that uses plain text files without any internal consistency checking mechanism. The PKGNG system is largely about addressing this very issue but of course is bringing more enhancements.
 
jwele said:
So what is the issue with pkg_tools? How recent were they added to FreeBSD as well? Also do you feel portage is superior to /usr/ports?

Greetings to you Sir! :e

I have no issue with pkg_toos. I just pointed out the fact that '.deb' precompiled pkg system is superior - in my humble opinion - than anything else that deals with precompiled packages. I used pkg_add for packages that have no dependencies, more than once.

The thing with portage is that it was my pkg manager of choice for about 6 or 7 years. At the time the compile failures were much more than today. Now (I used gentoo till May iirc) seems a bit more stable when you're running in a 'stable' branch, (non ~x86 ).

As long as I'm concerned portage is by far the most flexible package manager out there. Supports slots and a huge variety of options. To get a good grasp of gentoo's package manager you need extra tools (gentoolkit, etc).

That said, I'm really happy with ports, FreeBSD is an awesome rock-solid and - what I love about it - cleanly structured system. Everything is where you expect to. No surprises and performance wise feels better compared to gentoo running on the same low-cost hardware.
 
atmosx said:
I never said that apt-get never fails. I said that pkg_tools are not by any means comparable to apt-get and I really believe that. Neither freebsd tools is comparable to portage either imho. But ports are more than decent for me at least.

Just a question because, you seem reversing a bit the text: are you claiming that you keep a production system up and running using pkg_tools? Have you *ever* do it? If yes, I'm a fan! I can't run my 80 EUR embedded server just by using pkg_add, keeps mixing versions (even without messing with freebsd ports).

pkg_tools aren't comparable to apt, they are comparable to dpkg and rpm. I have never used Gentoo/portage, so I can't really comment. What I know is, the added flexibilty of portage really comes down to "flexibility" of GNU/Linux system - eg. a lot of pieces. Ports are used for additional software, not base, not kernel.

And yes, I'm running production systems based on -RELEASE with packages only.
If you don't have enough processing power on that embedded system to use ports, compile packages elsewhere, tranfser, and install via pkg-tools.

pkg-tools shouldn't be mixing versions if it's a stall repository like -RELEASE. pkg-tools can't resolve upgrade process, like I said, they're more similar to dpkg/rpm than to apt/yum. So using pkg-tools with -STABLE repository can be problematic when packages get updated, but there are ways and tools for that too.
 
Zare said:
pkg_tools aren't comparable to apt, they are comparable to dpkg and rpm. I have never used Gentoo/portage, so I can't really comment...

portage is really nice. It was inspired by FreeBSD ports and basically like port(master|upgrade) with a nice colored interface. Instead of using WITH_ATOM=1 or WITHOUT_ATOM=yes they have a variable use which picks up what supported flags should be included in the binary it creates.

Ex:

% USE="caca lame -X -gtk" emerge -v mplayer

There is a global make.conf file for system wide flags and another file for per port customisation.

It also simplified experimenting as the command will recompile without making you use a force command. It's also smart about reverse dependencies and have those removed with a switch after compile.
 
Halved this response to not waste anyone's time possibly.

kpa said:
The biggest issue with them is the very fragile /var/db/pkg package database that uses plain text files without any internal consistency checking mechanism. The PKGNG system is largely about addressing this very issue but of course is bringing more enhancements.

Those /var/db/pkg files serve a useful purpose here, each one a database of its installed port, and daily a target of shell-tab-completion (avoiding a pkg* command )... I always use "fixups"
Code:
pkgdb -F
portmaster -y --check-depends
and the tab completion of the shell enables, if one is practiced, quick fixes to dependency changes, reinstalls, formulations of long portmaster CLI, restarts of portmaster, etc. PKG may be fine, but it is a deprecation of sorts maybe of common unix CLI tools that in some cases may be easier.
Code:
grep bin /var/db/pkg/portname-number/+CONTENTS 
# even in long pipes, modified

I'm still not liking the /var/db/pkg going away. ( A chance the pkg code may be modified -- for an option to keep it (as an expense of more time to update ports), or some similar mechanism, but checking the ports mailing list daily, as of today at least, it is not forthcoming, or if it is , no announcement has been made.
 
^ exactly that. pkgng has "which" command that allows you to see what package some file comes from, but not vice-versa.
 
Well...

$ pkg query "%n-%v %o %Fp"

Code:
...
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/addr2line
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/ar
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/as
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/c++filt
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/elfedit
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/gprof
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/ld
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/ld.bfd
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/ld.gold
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/nm
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/objcopy
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/objdump
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/ranlib
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/readelf
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/size
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/strings
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/bin/strip
binutils-2.22_3 devel/binutils /usr/local/include/ansidecl.h
...

What more do you want?
 
The grep bin to which I referred, takes 2 seconds and no more complex syntax... But that was a simpler example, to illustrate the concept. (I've posted a more complete actual use-case to the freebsd-current list, last month or the month before. It is the ease of use of on-the-fly pipes and shell completion, principally to complete complex portmaster commands, but also many other programatically-operating-on-text-files that I'd just give up if I had to write actual ..%.. stuff to accomplish.
 
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