Just did a base install and am official part of the FreeBSD family!
At the moment I haven't installed or setup anything yet, but I did spend some time reading a bit of the handbook to familiarize myself with some of the basics; however, there are still a few things I'm confused about - most of which have to do with software installation.
1. FreeBSD's Release, Stable, Current:
I came from Archlinux previously, so everything was done in a rolling fashion (kernel, base, software).
For FreeBSD, I understand that development changes are separated by Release, Stable and Current.
And with each Release, Stable, Current, there might be changes to the kernel, base, and new/updated version of third party software available through the Ports Collection.
"BUT" does that mean new/updated third party software (ports collection) are only available when there's a new Release, new Stable, new Current? I'm sort of confused, because I'm completely foreign to ports, and from reading the handbook, there's mentions of:
For updating ports collection, finding outdated third party software and upgrading them.
But if changes are only made when a new Release, Stable, Current is rolled out, then there wouldn't be a need for such commands. Which means changes to third party software are not strictly limited to the roll out of a new release. But in actuality, changes to third party software can happen at any time. (I could be running 11.2 Release, but there might be changes to third party software I'm running prior to the 11.3 Release).
And this goes for other things as well, that while there's periodic roll out of new Release, Stable, Current, that does not mean that there's absolutely no changes in-between the releases. Things like freebsd-update is sometimes required when there's important security patches, etc.
Also, each flavor has its own ports collection right? But aside from looking in /usr/ports for the ports available to the flavor i'm running, is there somewhere online where I can see all the ports for Release, all the ports for Stable, Current? To see what's available for each flavor?
2.
As for ports (I'm using this Desktop for home use), would you guys recommend:
portsnap or subversion?
portmaster or portupgrade or synth or poudriere?
Lastly, while I don't usually have a specific need when it comes to software and probably should use pkg instead of ports to be honest, I nonetheless wanted to go with ports just to be safe (who knows, there might be a day when I want something with a different compile settings). So my question is, when I create and install from a port, I know there's a pop up window that will show up and present you with all the options for you tochoose the compile options you want - but does it present you with the "default" options first? (so if I don't check-mark any other boxes or making any changes, the port I will be building will be the exact same as if I was installing via pkg ?
At the moment I haven't installed or setup anything yet, but I did spend some time reading a bit of the handbook to familiarize myself with some of the basics; however, there are still a few things I'm confused about - most of which have to do with software installation.
1. FreeBSD's Release, Stable, Current:
I came from Archlinux previously, so everything was done in a rolling fashion (kernel, base, software).
For FreeBSD, I understand that development changes are separated by Release, Stable and Current.
And with each Release, Stable, Current, there might be changes to the kernel, base, and new/updated version of third party software available through the Ports Collection.
"BUT" does that mean new/updated third party software (ports collection) are only available when there's a new Release, new Stable, new Current? I'm sort of confused, because I'm completely foreign to ports, and from reading the handbook, there's mentions of:
portsnap fetch update
portmaster -L
portmaster -a
For updating ports collection, finding outdated third party software and upgrading them.
But if changes are only made when a new Release, Stable, Current is rolled out, then there wouldn't be a need for such commands. Which means changes to third party software are not strictly limited to the roll out of a new release. But in actuality, changes to third party software can happen at any time. (I could be running 11.2 Release, but there might be changes to third party software I'm running prior to the 11.3 Release).
And this goes for other things as well, that while there's periodic roll out of new Release, Stable, Current, that does not mean that there's absolutely no changes in-between the releases. Things like freebsd-update is sometimes required when there's important security patches, etc.
Also, each flavor has its own ports collection right? But aside from looking in /usr/ports for the ports available to the flavor i'm running, is there somewhere online where I can see all the ports for Release, all the ports for Stable, Current? To see what's available for each flavor?
2.
As for ports (I'm using this Desktop for home use), would you guys recommend:
portsnap or subversion?
portmaster or portupgrade or synth or poudriere?
Lastly, while I don't usually have a specific need when it comes to software and probably should use pkg instead of ports to be honest, I nonetheless wanted to go with ports just to be safe (who knows, there might be a day when I want something with a different compile settings). So my question is, when I create and install from a port, I know there's a pop up window that will show up and present you with all the options for you tochoose the compile options you want - but does it present you with the "default" options first? (so if I don't check-mark any other boxes or making any changes, the port I will be building will be the exact same as if I was installing via pkg ?