# [ HEADS UP ] Ports unstable for the next 10 days



## thuglife (Mar 28, 2010)

&quot said:
			
		

> Hi,
> 
> 
> As announced before, a few big commits, that touch some thousands ports
> ...



From freebsd-ports@, i thought i should spread the word.


----------



## jb_fvwm2 (Mar 28, 2010)

Thanks for the info.  Maybe that could be
useful as an addendum to the latest UPDATING
entry about png also... would be appreciated
I surmise by those reading UPDATING and not
this forum.


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## gcooper@ (Mar 29, 2010)

The directions for updating via portmaster are currently incorrect in UPDATING -- they should be:


```
portmaster -r 'png-*'
```

I've already informed dinoex@ about this.


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## DutchDaemon (Mar 29, 2010)

But you should _really_ wait for a few days, especially when using X. 

E.g. parts of XFCE became available over the course of two days, with Thunar (a dependency for lots of XFCE modules and related programs) appearing _last_. This could happen on any WM/DM, leaving you in limbo until the 'lowest dependency' finally shows up. 

So wait until the onslaught of port updates (especially the PNG version bumps) dries up before attempting upgrades. 

With the X.org upgrade in the pipeline as well, it's probably best to wait until at least April 10, and then apply the directions in /usr/ports/UPDATING in order before proceeding (chances are you'll recompile large parts of the X system several times over if you don't).


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## jb_fvwm2 (Mar 29, 2010)

*And idea...*

I was wondering if maybe similar port bumps
(jpeg, png, xorg-server, gnome...)
could be 
a... classified (greater than _300?_  ports affected)
then once- or twice- yearly
all of them rolled out in a two-week (?) 
"wait on updates" ports-caution "not -- a -- freeze"
(like this one).   Thus persons with a 
sizable number of ports installed can delay 
usual rebuild procedures and
plan a larger one.  Seems like an easy
"feature" with which to upgrade the
ports system.


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## johnblue (Mar 29, 2010)

```
Looking up portsnap.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 3 mirrors found.
Updating from Sat Mar 27 08:39:39 CDT 2010 to Mon Mar 29 12:21:46 CDT 2010.
Fetching 4398 patches.
```

yikes!!


```
pkg_version -v
apache-1.3.42                       =   up-to-date with port
autoconf-2.62                       =   up-to-date with port
autoconf-wrapper-20071109           =   up-to-date with port
bash-4.0.35                         =   up-to-date with port
bison-2.4.1,1                       =   up-to-date with port
cclient-2007e,1                     =   up-to-date with port
dovecot-1.2.10                      =   up-to-date with port
expat-2.0.1_1                       =   up-to-date with port
gettext-0.17_1                      =   up-to-date with port
gmake-3.81_3                        =   up-to-date with port
help2man-1.37.1_2                   =   up-to-date with port
libiconv-1.13.1_1                   =   up-to-date with port
libsigsegv-2.5                      =   up-to-date with port
libtool-2.2.6b                      =   up-to-date with port
libxml2-2.7.6_2                     =   up-to-date with port
m4-1.4.14,1                         =   up-to-date with port
p5-gettext-1.05_2                   =   up-to-date with port
pcre-8.00                           =   up-to-date with port
perl-5.8.9_3                        =   up-to-date with port
php5-5.2.12                         =   up-to-date with port
php5-imap-5.2.12                    =   up-to-date with port
php5-mbstring-5.2.12                =   up-to-date with port
php5-pcre-5.2.12                    =   up-to-date with port
php5-pgsql-5.2.12                   =   up-to-date with port
php5-session-5.2.12                 =   up-to-date with port
php5-simplexml-5.2.12               =   up-to-date with port
php5-spl-5.2.12                     =   up-to-date with port
php5-xml-5.2.12                     =   up-to-date with port
php5-xmlrpc-5.2.12                  =   up-to-date with port
phppgadmin-4.2.2                    =   up-to-date with port
pkg-config-0.23_1                   =   up-to-date with port
portaudit-0.5.14                    =   up-to-date with port
portmanager-0.4.1_9                 =   up-to-date with port
portmaster-2.19                     <   needs updating (port has 2.20)
postfix-2.7.0,1                     =   up-to-date with port
postfixadmin-2.3_1                  =   up-to-date with port
postgresql-client-8.4.3_1           =   up-to-date with port
postgresql-server-8.4.3_1           =   up-to-date with port
screen-4.0.3_7                      =   up-to-date with port
```

w00t!  Only one thing to update.

:e


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## Anonymous (Mar 29, 2010)

DutchDaemon said:
			
		

> But you should _really_ wait for a few days, especially when using X.



I "burned" myself once ): but my question is about KDE 4.4.? which is coming to the ports tree soon. Is it better for update png before KDE 4.4.? or wait for it came out, please?

Thanks.


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## phoenix (Mar 29, 2010)

Wait for everything to settle (PNG, X, JPEG, KDE, etc).  Then you only have to compile things once.


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## fronclynne (Mar 29, 2010)

Haha, whoops, I guess I should have read this before I went and `# portupgrade -uvfr png\* pkg-config\*`.  Oh f'well.  Guess I get to do it all over again next week.


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## DutchDaemon (Mar 29, 2010)

You should be alright on the libpng front. I think that storm has passed by now. But yeah, anything even remotely belonging to X11, Gnome or KDE  (including stuff using any of its libraries or helper apps) should be left untouched for at least two weeks.


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## sixtydoses (Mar 30, 2010)

fronclynne said:
			
		

> Haha, whoops, I guess I should have read this before I went and `# portupgrade -uvfr png\* pkg-config\*`.  Oh f'well.  Guess I get to do it all over again next week.



After few hours reading this I checked my /usr/ports/UPDATING and happily ran `# portupgrade -fr graphics/png`. By the time I realized it was(still is) upgrading OOo. OOohhh my..

Wonder if it's my age or my fast fingers..


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## fronclynne (Mar 30, 2010)

*go /usr/lib/libbegemot.so or go $HOME*



			
				sixtydoses said:
			
		

> (still is) upgrading OOo. OOohhh my..



Yes, they're not joking about the 12G of build space (and the CPU stress).  I like to -x openoffice\*, but when an underlying library version jump, like this libpng.so.5 -> libpng.so.6 happens, you either go all in or you don't go at all.


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## falkman (Mar 30, 2010)

Does anyone perhaps have an old snapshot (preferably 2-3 days old) before the ports went unstable? I just happened to be needing to install FreeBSD on a box during this time of peril, and I really do not want to use a very outdated snapshot (which is all I have). That would be great if someone could upload it and email me a link.

Thanks in advance,
Brandon Falk


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## rhurlin (Mar 30, 2010)

falkman said:
			
		

> Does anyone perhaps have an old snapshot (preferably 2-3 days old) before the ports went unstable? I just happened to be needing to install FreeBSD on a box during this time of peril, and I really do not want to use a very outdated snapshot (which is all I have). That would be great if someone could upload it and email me a link.



You may have a look at http://pub.allbsd.org/FreeBSD-snapshots/.


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## DutchDaemon (Mar 30, 2010)

You can use csup(1) to get a ports tree of an older date (use the 'date' tag in the cvsupfile), though it remains to be seen whether the older tarballs associated with these ports are all still there. Should generally be fine with a ports tree of, say, a week ago.


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## DutchDaemon (Mar 30, 2010)

DutchDaemon said:
			
		

> You should be alright on the libpng front. I think that storm has passed by now.



I was a bit overconfident here. I saw a couple of dozen _new_ png-based port bumps in the past day. So you may _still_ have to re-do all of it.

*So again: wait at least two weeks before attempting massive recursive port upgrades related to png, x11, curl and kde.*


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## jb_fvwm2 (Mar 30, 2010)

RE: the above "needs build space", one can
set WRKDIRPREFIX  to build on a /mnt and
not run out of space in, say, /usr during
building of many ports at once...

```
pkg_delete -f /var/db/pkg/[something] && make build  WRKDIRPREFIX=/mnt && yell
```
(assuming one has another disk mounted on /mnt), which
I initially neglected to post.


----------



## fronclynne (Apr 1, 2010)

jb_fvwm2 said:
			
		

> RE: the above "needs build space", one can
> set WRKDIRPREFIX  to build on a /mnt and
> not run out of space in, say, /usr during
> building of many ports at once...
> ...



I've thought about using tmpfs(5) (or in a pinch mdmfs(8)) to speed up the builds (and I also don't have to worry about that occasional stray $WRKDIRPREFIX/*/*/work/ hanging around when something goes awry), but 11 or 12 G is a bit much with only 4G of RAM.


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## graudeejs (Apr 1, 2010)

If you want to compile all OOO packages you need ~60GB  [just making silly note]

I can only suggest using ccache when building OOO monstrosity. It helps A LOT
you can disable atime, on bough zfs and ufs.
On zfs I also disable checksums, to speed things up on partition that I created to build OOO packages.

4G ram is good, but if any of you want to build OOO with 2G ram or 2.5G ram with zfs (like me) I suggest adding swap [just in case you don't have few spare bits in ram]


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## chrcol (Apr 6, 2010)

I have been doing maintenance as normal, noticed php5 got touched but not much else.

curl got an update but is still out of date along with dozes of other ports out of date.

nothing is actually broken tho.


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## sixtydoses (Apr 6, 2010)

Oh, mine is broken, thunar just crashed if I click on a directory that contains png file in it lol. 


Anyway, quoting Ion-Mihai Tetcu:



> Just a status update:
> PNG and cURL are in, and png fall-outs are believed to be fixed.
> 
> Xorg update has gone through an -exp run on Pointy and our xorg team is
> ...


----------



## varnie (Apr 6, 2010)

tried to update mplayer to mplayer-0.99.11_17 and have got the following (don't know if this bug related to this "thread announcement":

```
...
cc -O2 -pipe -O3 -ffast-math -fomit-frame-pointer -fno-strict-aliasing -I./libavcodec -I./libavformat -Wdisabled-optimization -Wno-pointer-sign 
-Wdeclaration-after-statement -I. -I. -I./libavutil -O2 -pipe -O3 -ffast-math -fomit-frame-pointer -fno-strict-aliasing  -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE 
-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I/usr/local/include/freetype2 -I.. -I../libavutil -I/usr/local/include -I/usr
/local/include  -I/usr/local/include/freetype2 -I/usr/local/include -D_THREAD_SAFE -I/usr/local/include/gtk-2.0 -I/usr/local/lib/gtk-
2.0/include -I/usr/local/include/atk-1.0 -I/usr/local/include/cairo -I/usr/local/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/include
/glib-2.0 -I/usr/local/lib/glib-2.0/include -I/usr/local/include/pixman-1 -I/usr/local/include/freetype2   -I../libavcodec -I../libavformat 
-Wdisabled-optimization -Wno-pointer-sign -Wdeclaration-after-statement -I. -I.. -I../libavutil -O2 -pipe -O3 -ffast-math -fomit-frame-pointer 
-fno-strict-aliasing  -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I/usr/local/include/freetype2 -I... 
-I.../libavutil -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/include  -I/usr/local/include/freetype2 -I/usr/local/include -D_THREAD_SAFE -I/usr/local
/include/gtk-2.0 -I/usr/local/lib/gtk-2.0/include -I/usr/local/include/atk-1.0 -I/usr/local/include/cairo -I/usr/local/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr
/local/include -I/usr/local/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/local/lib/glib-2.0/include -I/usr/local/include/pixman-1 -I/usr/local/include/freetype2     
-c -o dvb_tune.o dvb_tune.c
dvb_tune.c:33:19: error: error.h: No such file or directory
gmake[1]: *** [dvb_tune.o] Error 1
gmake[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/ports/multimedia/mplayer/work/MPlayer-1.0rc2/stream'
gmake: *** [stream/stream.a] Error 2
*** Error code 1

Stop in /usr/ports/multimedia/mplayer.
*** Error code 1

Stop in /usr/ports/multimedia/mplayer.
```
maybe someone will point me in right direction?


----------



## alice23 (Apr 6, 2010)

varnie said:
			
		

> tried to update mplayer to mplayer-0.99.11_17 and have got the following (don't know if this bug related to this "thread announcement":
> 
> ```
> ... -c -o dvb_tune.o dvb_tune.c
> ...



well as a hotfix just comment out the error.h in dvb_tune.c
line 33.

please file a problem report so the port maintainer can fix
this in a more correct way...

cu,
alice23


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## varnie (Apr 6, 2010)

thank you, alice23. i notified port maintainer about this issue.


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## Ruler2112 (Apr 6, 2010)

Idea - why not have a categorization in the ports system that specifies stable/new?  The system would have a setting (like an RC entry or something) to specify what port release you want to grab when doing a portsnap.

That way, people like myself who want to keep a production server as updated as possible won't run the risk of not seeing a message such as this one before upgrading because the new ports could be released in the new category.  Once everything has been hammered out as much as possible (say running at least a week without trouble), the new versions could be classified as stable.

Just an idea, but I think it'd be excellent for all but the simplest/most severe bug fixes.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Apr 6, 2010)

Sounds like a whole new 3-week-delayed ports tree.  Else it
would have to integrate with the upstream tinderbox testing...
and would need resources to administer.  Besides, the reason
for this instance is "shared libraries"...  Feel free to repost
with those taken into account, (this reply ignores portsnap 
entirely though, not using it at the present time.  So forgive the
post if it is not specifically relevant to the idea.)


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## nu2fbsd (Apr 8, 2010)

*1.* When I do `# portupgrade -PR gnome2` I do not get the packages but the source and it upgrades using ports instead of packages.

*2.* I am getting ghostscript8 install error. I am not able to install the latest version which is 8.71. Where is the log for this so I can post the exact lines on the forum for help. Would it be in /*/*/work/ directory?


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## oliverh (Apr 8, 2010)

>why not have a categorization in the ports system that specifies stable/new?

Maybe just because of a lack of menpower?


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## DutchDaemon (Apr 8, 2010)

nu2fbsd said:
			
		

> *1.* When I do `# portupgrade -PR gnome2` I do not get the packages but the source and it upgrades using ports instead of packages.



That's the difference between -P and -PP. If the package is outdated and there isn't a newer one, the port is used instead.


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## GoksinAkdeniz (Apr 12, 2010)

*Are ports stable yet?*

Are ports stable yet? I will do two fresh installations this week and I am looking for information about the status of portstree. If all ok, I will proceed with the update portstree or I will stable copy of ports I have.

Thanks in advance.


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## DutchDaemon (Apr 12, 2010)

Looking at the list that was 'promised' (png, curl, x11, gnome, kde4), only png has arrived in full. The rest is probably still in the works.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Apr 12, 2010)

Curl was probably on April 3 or a bit earlier or later.
My short list of stuff remaining suggests X, gnome...
not using KDE4...
BTW I recall many ( in past years) gnome updates happening on a Sunday.


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## hydra (Apr 13, 2010)

I wanted to upgrade 2 days ago, but it failed on mplayer. Luckily I had my packages backed up, so I could rollback (portmaster -b).


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## varnie (Apr 13, 2010)

*hydra*, yes mplayer seems to be broken because of all this hodgepodge happening now. i have informed its maintainer. please keep patience.


----------



## Oxyd (Apr 13, 2010)

varnie said:
			
		

> *hydra*, yes mplayer seems to be broken because of all this hodgepodge happening now. i have informed its maintainer. please keep patience.



It's been mentioned in this thread along with a hack to make it build.


----------



## varnie (Apr 13, 2010)

yes, sir.
but *alice23* asked me to file a problem report.
i performed that request and came back with the reaction from mplayer's maintainer which i've posted above.
it's a good deal, isn't it?


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## Seeker (Apr 15, 2010)

What is a current status of this mess?


When will this warning be lifted?
I haven't updated a single port for more then 2 weeks now.

When will "green light" be given?


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## Anonymous (Apr 15, 2010)

There are also vulnerabilities in kdebase 4.3.5_1. Are we waiting for patch for 4.3.5 or for kdebase 4.4? Which one would be out earlier?


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## oliverh (Apr 15, 2010)

Seeker said:
			
		

> What is a current status of this mess?
> 
> 
> When will this warning be lifted?
> ...





> my Laptop is gone, the sata controller thought it
> is too hot here and and didnâ€™t want to work longer
> here so now itâ€™s broken. Tomorrow I get a new one
> with hoping to get FreeBSD installed quickly and
> ...



http://miwi.bsdcrew.de/2010/04/kuala-lumpur-first-impressionen/

This info is from the last week, so maybe it will be this weekend if all of the problems in _real-life_ are solved


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## Seeker (Apr 15, 2010)

Ok, thx!

Just someone please post / announce / issue "green light"


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## rossiya (Apr 20, 2010)

Seeker said:
			
		

> Just someone please post / announce / issue "green light"



The only green light is during a ports freeze, prior to an upcoming release like 8.1.  Why not enjoy the lull time now by finding and fixing broken apps?


```
#cd /usr/local/bin
#find . -type f | xargs -n 1 file | grep ELF | cut -f1 -d':'| xargs -n 1 ldd | grep -B 20 found
```


----------



## GoksinAkdeniz (Apr 20, 2010)

*Ports are stable again!*

Ports are stable again. 
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2010-April/215232.html


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## Anonymous (Apr 20, 2010)

GoksinAkdeniz said:
			
		

> Ports are stable again.
> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2010-April/215232.html



It is relative if ports are stable again (BTW I updated earlier) but if you are look at my post:
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=13413
you will see that is thee another problem plus Xorg is not ready yet, KDE 4.4 waiting for version??...


----------



## GoksinAkdeniz (Apr 20, 2010)

lumiwa said:
			
		

> ...
> you will see that is thee another problem plus Xorg is not ready yet, KDE 4.4 waiting for version??...


Xorg is being tested AFAIK. I do not have any information about KDE 4.*.* ports.


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## rossiya (Apr 21, 2010)

*Portupgrade -fa  is Unwieldy*

IMHO FreeBSD has been plagued by broken releases.  If the policy now is to test the testers I would be overjoyed.  Far too many ports require some hack like touching nonexistent error.h files or going into the work/ directory source to gmake some directories by hand.  At least the shell code I posted above finds broken shared library dependencies.  That caused me a lot of frustration over the years as my seemingly nice rebuilt application tree would crash unexpectedly upon "startx" or cause strange drawing errors etc.

I've seen recommendations like "portupgrade -fa" which is unwieldy in the real world with deadlines.  Not everyone is a billionaire who can play "World of Warcraft" for three days while his workstation completely rebuilds.  Besides the scan I posted *STILL* catches broken libraries even after a complete ports rebuild!


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## Anonymous (Apr 24, 2010)

rossiya said:
			
		

> IMHO FreeBSD has been plagued by broken releases.  If the policy now is to test the testers I would be overjoyed.  Far too many ports require some hack like touching nonexistent error.h files or going into the work/ directory source to gmake some directories by hand.  At least the shell code I posted above finds broken shared library dependencies.  That caused me a lot of frustration over the years as my seemingly nice rebuilt application tree would crash unexpectedly upon "startx" or cause strange drawing errors etc.
> 
> I've seen recommendations like "portupgrade -fa" which is unwieldy in the real world with deadlines.  Not everyone is a billionaire who can play "World of Warcraft" for three days while his workstation completely rebuilds.  Besides the scan I posted *STILL* catches broken libraries even after a complete ports rebuild!



I am not a computer educated person but if I look for update of KDE 4.4 which has a lot of bugfixes  and came out in February and it is not in the ports it is unusual. Or Linux world enjoy with beta or what ever version of K3b for KDE4 but not FreeBSD users. I know the answer: use console. But the question is WHY? 
Thanks.


----------



## Bunyan (Apr 24, 2010)

*cdrtools* and *dvd+rw-tools* are the ports on which k3b relies. I'd better use them (mkisofs, cdrecord, growisofs).


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## DutchDaemon (Apr 24, 2010)

X.Org may be hitting the ports tree soon. @miwi reports today: 





> next round of xorg exp started now  let's hope this is the last run.


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## Anonymous (Apr 24, 2010)

Bunyan said:
			
		

> *cdrtools* and *dvd+rw-tools* are the ports on which k3b relies. I'd better use them (mkisofs, cdrecord, growisofs).



I have a sand paper and my hands but I have also an option to use a sanding machine. And I decided for the machine.
Thanks.


----------



## SirDice (Apr 28, 2010)

rossiya said:
			
		

> I've seen recommendations like "portupgrade -fa" which is unwieldy in the real world with deadlines.  Not everyone is a billionaire who can play "World of Warcraft" for three days while his workstation completely rebuilds.  Besides the scan I posted *STILL* catches broken libraries even after a complete ports rebuild!



Do like I do, build all your ports in a jail. That way your running system will continue to work. Once everything is done and packaged up, install the built packages. It shouldn't take more then 30 minutes to remove all the old packages and install the new ones.


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## rossiya (Apr 29, 2010)

*Gentoo no Refuge*



			
				lumiwa said:
			
		

> I am not a computer educated person but if I look for update of KDE 4.4 which has a lot of bugfixes  and came out in February and it is not in the ports it is unusual. Or Linux world enjoy with beta or what ever version of K3b for KDE4 but not FreeBSD users. I know the answer: use console. But the question is WHY?
> Thanks.



I just installed a Gentoo system, and upon the 35th build of 350+ to make kde4, the emerge croaked.  Glancing at the USE options it's borderline nuts.  There must be two hundred little knobs to tweak.  You could literally be configuring Gentoo until the end of the universe with the combinatorial possibilities.  Then to make my fully encrypted disk I must make a little virtual file system with static builds of a mini-Gentoo system.  What a nightmare.  x(



			
				SirDice said:
			
		

> Do like I do, build all your ports in a jail.



That occurred to me, but not having read it in UPDATING I tried the incremental approach.  I guess now it's semi-official.  In fact today I noticed PCBSD has a /portsJail directory ostensibly for that very reason.


----------



## Anonymous (Apr 29, 2010)

rossiya said:
			
		

> I just installed a Gentoo system, and upon the 35th build of 350+ to make kde4, the emerge croaked.  Glancing at the USE options it's borderline nuts.  There must be two hundred little knobs to tweak.  You could literally be configuring Gentoo until the end of the universe with the combinatorial possibilities.  Then to make my fully encrypted disk I must make a little virtual file system with static builds of a mini-Gentoo system.  What a nightmare.  x(
> 
> 
> 
> That occurred to me, but not having read it in UPDATING I tried the incremental approach.  I guess now it's semi-official.



I installed Debian 1993 and had on computer more than 10 years. I never had problem with update and I never had problem with security. I tried Slackware too and Arch Linux. I use FreeBSD two years but start thinking  going back to Debian or Slackware.

BTW: As I know KDE 4.4 will be in the ports in the middle of May.


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## DutchDaemon (Apr 30, 2010)

miwi@ writes:



> Ok Xorg-Exp is finished, thanks to fluffy@ for fixing the latest problems! I'll send a Heads up tomorrow


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## DutchDaemon (Apr 30, 2010)

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-ports/2010-April/060906.html


> Xorg 7.5 merge coming tomorrow
> 
> First of all I apologize for the long waiting time for Xorg 7.5
> Now the facts. Xorg 7.5 is completely finished last issues
> ...



Please use only this thread to report issues with the X.Org upgrade!


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## DutchDaemon (May 11, 2010)

The new GNOME (v. 2.30.1) is about to hit the ports tree:

http://www.freebsd.org/gnome/newsflash.html#event2010May10:0
http://www.freebsd.org/gnome/docs/faq230.html


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## DutchDaemon (May 11, 2010)

miwi@ hints that Qt, py-qt and KDE are close to being released as well ...


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## DutchDaemon (May 11, 2010)

miwi@:



> Qt-4.6.2, PyQt-4.7.3, SIP-4.10.2, QScintilla-2.4.3, KDE SC 4.4.3 and lots of other ports now in portstree. Happy updating!


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## EasyTarget (May 19, 2010)

This thread is sticky.
It says 'Unstable for next 10 days, and has done so for 40+ days now.

It rambles, goes OT, and leaves the reader no more informed than they were before, certainly with no idea about current status of the ports tree. This is a very good advert for the technical competence and stability of FreeBSD.

The correct place to announce this stuff is /usr/ports/UPDATING


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## DutchDaemon (May 19, 2010)

Forgot to remove the 'sticky' part, indeed. Your conclusion is invalid and ill-founded, as this is a _user_ community forum, not an official communications channel for the FreeBSD Project in any way. This forum is as pertinent to the FreeBSD Project as a Dr. Phil self-help book is to psychology.


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## DutchDaemon (May 19, 2010)

P.S. the roll-out of the ports mentioned in the opening post (png, curl, x11, gnome, kde4) has been completed, so there's no reason not to get up-to-date with your ports.


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## EasyTarget (May 19, 2010)

Clearing the sticky flag really helps.

"Your conclusion is invalid and ill-founded."

Why? is it because a search for 'FreeBSD help community' never turns this forum up? and it's not hosted on the official freebsd site? and it's not cross-posting important information from the development community like 'don't update for the next 10 days since everything is in a state of flux'? or anything like that?

From where I am sitting it sure looks official to me. 

DD, I realise you are doing a lot here, certainly a lot more than I could ever do, and it's not fun fighting all the problems -and- idjeeots like me poking holes in stuff. But you are approaching this from a position of already knowing all this stuff, most people here are not.

Given the disconnects between UPDATING & freebsd-ports@, plus the usual human foobaas that will come from any development activity, real-world users end up here; especially the ones who are not 'into' the development side of things. They come here because it is the best place for them to get help they really need. And the completeness of the info here, especially omissions and uncorrected bad info, will affect their success, enthusiasm, and eventually FreeBSD's overall perception and take up. 

Maybe it is time that this -did- become an official communications channel, instead of just a de-facto one.


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## jb_fvwm2 (May 19, 2010)

EasyTarget said:
			
		

> Clearing the sticky flag really helps.
> 
> "Your conclusion is invalid and ill-founded."
> 
> ...



In defense of the forum...

This forum is only a few years old.  The previous forum, was
abandoned to spammers.  The website redesign is only a few 
years old.  The OS however is very mature, the earlier
references are usually the mailing list and usenet (the
latter had a portal, with lots of unix/bsd info, but was
"taken over" by the internet, then a site that played nice
with searches, etc, was bought out and effectively made
not-the-same.
"don't update" is totally dependent upon the usage of
the machine. (Is it hosting webservers? Is it one's 
desktop? is it one's router? ) and the procedure process 
posted in UPDATING reflects tradition when there were
only a few thousand ports, and far fewer using it as
a desktop.  So change has transpired there too.
One can visit many Linux wiki's (maybe more thorough than
the handbook) and effectively be informed about stuff not
covered enough in the handbook (stuff common to both.) OTOH
more and more bsd-info portals are appearing.
...
Put in somewhat different terms, freebsd is "so" volunteer
that "official" should be used sparingly, if at all.  For
instance, I use zsh a lot.  But 
only because in 2004-5, I acquired and
tested several large .zshrc from the web, and cobbled together
a working well one, (having read reports of
how well the result may be).  So while I may use it a lot, I am
in no way an authority, just experienced in using it, and
can give good answers in just a *few* aspects of it (and
freebsd).  But in many other ways (I use it primarily as
a desktop) I am more inexperienced than many coming to
freebsd from linux. (As in, "what is an ipsec server??? used 
actually for? " ).

...
Maybe too many topics already in this thread, not to
demean the thread, but to suggest branching it into
three seperate ones...


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## DutchDaemon (May 19, 2010)

The opening post in this thread was not an official piece of communication; it was posted by a regular member who managed to run into that message from Ion-Mihai Tetcu to the freebsd-ports@ mailing list. I added the heads-up part and turned it into a sticky thread to make sure it got some additional attention. It's just another example of users helping one another. The fact that some official communications from the FreeBSD Project and the Foundation get posted here (through RSS feeds) is also just a matter of convenience and added information -- it does not make it a de-facto communications channel for official FreeBSD affairs.

The official communication channels of the FreeBSD Project are its website and its mailing lists. Despite the fact that some FreeBSD developers and core team members hang out here, this forum is (and probably will remain, though I have no say in that as I do not work for FreeBSD in any capacity), a nice-to-have addition to the official communication channels, and first and foremost a place where regular FreeBSD users can come for a quick fix for common problems, relieving the mailing lists of the more mundane matters that tend to end up there. There is no guarantee that suggestions or criticisms of FreeBSD made here end up in any official FreeBSD channel 'higher up'. It really is a rather separate playing ground.

So, a user community forum. That's all the forum aspires to be, really, and as on any other forum, there is good information, bad information, and outdated information as time goes by. Whether it is 'the best place for them' (the end-users) is a matter of opinion, and all I can say is that the most active members certainly try to give satisfactory answers to all but the most technical and avanced level of questions (which should be posted to the mailing lists), and I think the forums serve the purpose as 'the first line of help' as much as they were intended to be. Nothing more, nothing less.


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## chrcol (May 24, 2010)

DutchDaemon said:
			
		

> P.S. the roll-out of the ports mentioned in the opening post (png, curl, x11, gnome, kde4) has been completed, so there's no reason not to get up-to-date with your ports.



gd in php5 has been broken since the png update, and I had to use portdowngrade to fix.

whats the official solution?


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## DutchDaemon (May 24, 2010)

I'm running php5-gd-5.3.2 with png-1.4.1_1, which are both the current versions (and updating was done in accordance with /usr/ports/UPDATING). So what is broken in your opinion?


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## jb_fvwm2 (May 31, 2010)

Soon cvsup/csup 'd-able is the UPDATING and
/usr/ports/devel/gettext bump.  The former implies
ports to have their minor versions bumped also, very
many of them.  I expect to wait at least a week or
longer though, (Here) to be done concurrently with
the recent gnome bump (probably.)


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## chrcol (Jun 14, 2010)

DutchDaemon said:
			
		

> I'm running php5-gd-5.3.2 with png-1.4.1_1, which are both the current versions (and updating was done in accordance with /usr/ports/UPDATING). So what is broken in your opinion?



I believe php 5.3 has been patched in 5.3.2 to fix the problem but php 5.2 gd is broken with png 1.4, currently on dozens of servers I have forcefully kept png on 1.2 but this is causing some ports to skip upgrades.


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