What do you do when you don't know ports options

If you don't know what they do or what the consequences are leave the defaults. Or feel adventurous and turn things on (or off) but expect breakage or weird results. For most options it's fairly obvious what they do. Although some options require to be set on multiple ports correctly for them to fully function. In any case, you can always read the port's Makefile to see what the options do.
 
I'm asking this because trying to install a program from packages and from ports, I noticed that with default options certain ports have a huge amount of dependencies compared to packages, and I want to install just the needed things without zillions of dependencies.
 
Keep in mind when building from ports you also have to install or build the build dependencies. These dependencies are only needed to build the port, they're not needed for the package (because it's already been built).
 
Another hint: before using e.g. Portmaster or Poudriere or something (if you use such a tool in the first place), you can change into the port directory, use make config to play with the options and use commands such as make all-depends-list, make run-depends-list and make build-depends-list to see what effect turning options on or off has on the dependencies that are required. You may want to keep track of what the defaults are, though. You can usually find this in the port's Makefile (or a separate options Makefile if there is one).
 
And yet another hint: To get rid of the build dependencies, you can do # pkg autoremove after the installation has finished.
 
Use make missing to display which ports will have to be installed for this port with the current options settings.
 
Windmill said:
I'm asking this because trying to install a program from packages and from ports, I noticed that with default options certain ports have a huge amount of dependencies compared to packages, and I want to install just the needed things without zillions of dependencies.
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Oh, and please PLEASE do not mix ports and packages. You may be good, wait - you may think you are good. You will run into trouble if things do not match up. These glitches will seem dependent on the moon phase and/or if you janitor is wearing a new shirt.

And, if you no not remove the build dependencies each time, you may not need to rebuild these each time. Your mileage may vary on this.
 
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