# How long does a portupgrade take?



## calgarychris (Sep 29, 2011)

Hi,

Newbie FreeBSD user just trying to learn as much as I can about FreeBSD.  I installed FreeBSD8.2 and was trying to install Gnome but got a broken pipe error part way through a number of times, so I then tried KDE4 which also gave me a broken pipe error...I then read about (well, re-read) that I need to run portupgrade -a to get the ports tree updated.  My question is, it's day 3 and it's still running...any idea how long it might take?!  It's definitely working, as it scrolls heaps of stuff on the screen and periodically makes me choose whether to install particular bits of software but it's just going on and on...I imagine because it needs to update both Gnome and KDE, correct?  Stupid me.

As an aside, if I have not customised the kernel or anything like that, can a FreeBSD installation that is on a USB be used on a different machine?  I'm currently "trying it out" via a laptop before mucking around on my server hardware.

Thanks!
Chris


----------



## wblock@ (Sep 29, 2011)

How long it takes depends on how many ports are installed, how big they are, and how fast the machine is.  GNOME and KDE are both big.

Sometimes it's quicker to deinstall all ports and reinstall rather than rebuilding in-place.  That can be done without losing your information; see the example at the end of portmaster(8).

A trick to avoiding huge upgrades is to update the ports tree right after an install, before installing any ports.  Then the ports that are installed are current.

General procedures for keeping ports updated: Upgrading FreeBSD Ports

Yes, a FreeBSD disk can be moved to another system.  There can be problems with disk numbering, but it's not too hard to fix.


----------



## DutchDaemon (Sep 29, 2011)

Note that [cmd=]portupgrade -a[/cmd] does not "upgrade the ports tree"; that's what portsnap(8) or csup(1) does. When the ports tree is up to date, tools like ports-mgmt/portupgrade or ports-mgmt/portmaster can upgrade installed applications (ports). Essential distinction.


----------



## calgarychris (Oct 8, 2011)

If I may ask a basic question:

I have re-installed FreeBSD from scratch and upgraded the ports tree using portsnap.  I have (I think) installed portmaster using `make install clean` (as per the Handbook).  When I check pkg_version I have only two things installed:


```
en-freebsd-doc
portmaster
```
When I try to use portmaster -- i.e. [cmd=]portmaster -L --index-only| egrep '(ew|ort) version|total install[/cmd] -- however it says 
	
	



```
Command not found
```
  I have tried this from a couple of different spots but it never seems to work.

Can anyone suggest what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks


----------



## DutchDaemon (Oct 8, 2011)

[cmd=]rehash[/cmd] or [cmd=]hash -r[/cmd]


----------

