# portinstall or make install clean



## ccc (Feb 2, 2009)

hi

what are differences between portinstall and make install clean?
which command should I use to install packages from ports under freeBSD 7.x?


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## DutchDaemon (Feb 2, 2009)

They do exactly the same thing; 'portinstall portname' will almost always work, unless the portname is ambiguous. In that case, you will need 'portinstall category/portname', e.g. 'portinstall mail/postfix'. This is equivalent to 'cd /usr/ports/mail/postfix && make install clean' (including a 'make config' if the port has options). You can still use things like 'make (rm|show)config', but you will have to cd to the port dir for that, so 'portinstall' is easy for a straightforward installation. Also look into the -P and -PP options in case you prefer packages some of the time or all of the time. I usually use portinstall for ports I know well (like bash, perl, etc.) and which hold no surprises.


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## ale (Feb 2, 2009)

ccc said:
			
		

> which command should I use to install packages from ports under freeBSD 7.x?


http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports.html


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