# mlterm package compile options



## yha (May 8, 2019)

Hi,

I have recently installed mlterm on my system since it's the best (if not the only) terminal emulator with decent Arabic/RTL support (tried urxvt, but it doesn't play well with Arabic). I use mlterm because my main IRC client is irssi and mlterm works nicely with that in terms of Arabic support. And although pretty much everything else has broken support for Arabic (ranger, cmus, etc), I can at least use irssi.

Anyway, I normally install everything on my machine through packages, but apparently the binary was compiled without bidi support so I had to remove the package and build from ports. I have two questions:


I know it's not recommended to mix packages with ports, and I don't recall the complete list of dependencies that the mlterm port pulled, but I know that gettext was one of them. During a recent 'pkg upgrade' I saw some gettext-related packages being upgraded, so I suspect I now have two versions of gettext (or gettext-related stuff) on my system. Should I remove one of them?
Who should I contact to request the inclusion of bidi in the mlterm package? Are packages maintained by the same author of the port version?

Thanks.


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## SirDice (May 8, 2019)

yha said:


> so I suspect I now have two versions of gettext (or gettext-related stuff) on my system.


I doubt that (the system won't allow that to happen), but have a look with `pkg version -vRx gettext` or `pkg info -x gettext` and verify.



yha said:


> Who should I contact to request the inclusion of bidi in the mlterm package?


The port's maintainer would the one to contact.



yha said:


> Are packages maintained by the same author of the port version?


No, packages are built using an automated system. Ports build packages and packages are always build with the default options set. Change the port and the packages will automatically follow.


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## yha (May 15, 2019)

This is what I get:

```
x1c# pkg version -vRx gettext
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
FreeBSD repository is up to date.
All repositories are up to date.
gettext-runtime-0.19.8.1_2         =   up-to-date with remote
gettext-tools-0.19.8.1_1           =   up-to-date with remote
x1c# pkg info -x gettext
gettext-runtime-0.19.8.1_2
gettext-tools-0.19.8.1_1
```

I suppose that means everyting is OK? (aside from the minor version difference [the part after the underscore])

Also, I contacted the author of the port/package so hopefully bidi will be compiled into the binary in future package versions.


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