FreeBSD Ports for GNU/Linux

proclus writes: "GNU-Darwin has provided a special FreeBSD ports tarball (20 Mb) for GNU/Linux users. We have modified the FreeBSD Ports System to bring thousands of free software offerings within the reach of every GNU/Linux user. The system is not fully automated yet, but you can untar it in your home directory and try it. Just follow these directions. This system provides full access to the FreeBSD ports, so that users can compile and install software in their home directories. Root access is not required."

Open Packages

[Z4rd0Z]

I don't know how many times I wanted to do this, but always got bogged down in the details. The OpenPackages [openpackages.org] project has had their system working on Linux for a while now. However, OpenPackages departs from the FreeBSD ports collection and takes a lot from OpenBSD and NetBSD as well. And it's not finished yet. Work seems to have slowed down on it too, unfortunately.

Re:FreeBSD programs w/in reach of Linux users?

[The_Rift]

It's the system of installing the software not the software itself.
Installing a program using the ports tree is as simple as:
#cd /usr/ports/foo/bar
#make install clean

The source is downloaded from one of a list of servers and so are any dependancies. Everything gets compiled and installed and the source code and whatnot is cleaned up afterwards.
It's one of the biggest reasons I love FreeBSD so much.

Compile flags

[flynn_nrg]

I prefer to compile with these options in my /etc/make.conf

CPUTYPE=i686

This way you automagically have a cc -O -pipe -march=pentiumpro setup so you don't compile for 10 years old 386 cpus.

Sure, compiling KDE2 will take some time, but who cares, you can continue working while the package builds, thanks God for dual cpus and SCSI disks :)

Re:FreeBSD programs w/in reach of Linux users?

[lemox]

While it doesn't do dependancies like ports, the following will do what you want:

# apt-get install pentium-builder
# less /usr/share/doc/pentium-builder/README.Debian

apt-get source whatever -b

pentium-builder is pretty handy IMHO.

Re:OpenBSD packaging

[Tony-A]

ftp> get foo "|pkg_add -v -"
The trick is to do pkg_add inside of ftp instead of ftp inside of pkg_add.

Open Packages is *MORE* than BSD

[mr]

If you actually LOOK at what OpenPackages is doing, not only does it work with the BSD's, some of the 190+ linux versions, but also with AIX, HP/UX and other Unix platforms.

OpenPackages is a universal solution. GNU-Darwin is less than universal.

Depends on what you want. To be inclusive or exclusive.

Re:FreeBSD programs w/in reach of Linux users?

[sir_nas]

yes, but also dont forget that bsd also has a pkg_add command. when used with the -r switch, ir downloads binaries of whatever you are trying to install, ie: pkg_add -r kde or whatever, and will also fetch dependicies. so you sort of get the best of both worlds, you can either use ports to compile from source, or you can be lazy and use pkg_add to grab the binaries w/deps.

Re:FreeBSD programs w/in reach of Linux users?

[skbenolkin]

Point taken, to some extent, but for FreeBSD, there's pkg_update [freebsd.org].

I'm only gonna say this once

[scrytch]

so listen up. Ports has nothing to do with "porting" software from one platform to another. The ports collection is basically a package management and browsing system. It's a directory of packages, broken into categories, like ports/games, ports/net, ports/security, and so on. Each package has a makefile. The makefile will download, compile, create and install a binary package for that package and every one of its dependencies. It differs from traditional package managers in that dependencies are not done by package, e.g. kde doesn't look for a package for qt, it looks for the proper version of libqt.so -- think of it like a sort of autoconf. this saves you from the dependency hells other package managers put you through, and if you install a dependency manually, then things still install (and if you screwed up the dependency, well, that's your problem). When it's finished installing, the source tree sticks around (until you do a make clean), so if you need to modify something for your local system, you can go into the source, tweak at will, then make install again.

gentoo uses something very much like ports, though it doesn't use make, but a python utility called emerge instead. i would hope to see it use SCons in the future, and get the best of both worlds -- it might even be enough to get me to switch back to linux (once it stops having a VM bug of the week)