# Only use of pkg, do ports need to be updated?



## lib13 (Jan 29, 2014)

Hi,

I have a couple of very old/weak machines where I think I could install all software with `pkg`.
Do I still need to keep /usr/ports updated via regular `portsnap fetch upgrade`?
Does `pkg` care about the change of origin of some packages as mentioned in the UPDATING file of /usr/ports ?


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## SirDice (Jan 29, 2014)

lib13 said:
			
		

> Do I still need to keep /usr/ports updated via regular `portsnap fetch upgrade`?


Not really. It isn't needed for pkg to function properly, /usr/ports/ can be completely empty (I'd prefer that over an outdated ports tree). But it may come in handy when comparing available vs. installed versions of packages (`pkg version -vI`). At home I have an up to date ports tree NFS shared (read-only), I can mount that if I need to.



> Does `pkg` care about the change of origin of some packages as mentioned in the UPDATING file of /usr/ports ?


Yes, it does. It needs to keep track of dependencies.


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