# Current state of Packages?



## rhish (Jan 21, 2013)

Im a little confused about the current state of Packages, in general. There's this transition, from the old pkg system to the pkgng system. And once you convert, you can't go back to the old system. But then, once you convert, you find out, there aren't actually any packages under pkgng system?

From what I've gathered, there was a security issue with the pkgng system. So all the packages were taken down? And so, people are building their own packagaes and distributing them as needed?

Is this a temporary situation? Will the pkgng system eventually be as fruitful as the old system was? i.e. lots of packagaes available.

Or am I just completely lost and don't realize where all the packages are?

http://pkgbeta.FreeBSD.org/freebsd:9:x86:64/ ?

Personally I enjoy using ports for the majority of situations. But, sometimes, these massive builds on slower systems, Packages really save the day. I don't mind building on a faster cpu and doing things that way, but, would be nice if the new system had packages.

Is the old system still suppose to be used? or is it discouraged?

Not criticizing or analyzing. If there is a security issue, im glad they found it and are working on it.
Just trying to find out what's going on. And what to expect in the future.

thanks everyone.


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## kpa (Jan 21, 2013)

PKGNG is not yet replacing the old package format, only on 10-CURRENT. The security incident affected the package building nodes that were used to build the packages in the old format. The reason why there are no PKGNG packages available is because of the beta status of the PKGNG project and the limited resources of the FreeBSD project combined with the effects of the security incident, the focus is on getting the old format packages available first for FreeBSD 9.1.


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## rhish (Jan 21, 2013)

thanks for the info kpa!

So, its as I feared, there are no packages at all, neither pkgng or the old way...

But, there is an active effort to bring back the old system packages for 9.1?


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## wblock@ (Jan 22, 2013)

Packages are available.  ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/packages/Latest/.


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## segfault (Jan 22, 2013)

wblock@ said:
			
		

> Packages are available.  ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/packages/Latest/.



I haven't tried this personally, but I have been successfully using the old packages from 9.0 located at:


```
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/amd64/9.0-RELEASE/packages/Latest/
```

I solved the same problem you have by simply adding the following to my root user's .cshrc file so that when I use him to run pkg_add it uses the 9.0 packages (for now).

```
setenv PACKAGESITE "ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/amd64/9.0-RELEASE/packages/Latest/"
```

Seems to be working for me. Looking forward to pkgng though


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## SirDice (Jan 22, 2013)

Don't use the -release package trees. They are old and are NEVER updated.


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## segfault (Jan 22, 2013)

Ah I see now that looking at the timestamps of the packages in the link you provided are indeed over a year newer than the ones I am pulling from the 9.0-RELEASE repository.
Very nice. Thank you for this.


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## rhish (Jan 22, 2013)

All good info, thanks everyone.

I'm sure there is a way to reverse the process of going pkgng? It's just a matter of difficulty, complexity?

Anyone know of a simple way to do so? On a system what has already been portsnap updated, pkg installed, and pkg2ng ran, and then several ports installed?

Could I wipe out some database, deinstall pkg and reinstall the old system, portsnap and start fresh as if I hadn't converted to pkgng?


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## SirDice (Jan 22, 2013)

I'm not sure but doesn't pkgng store a backup of the 'old' package registrations in /var/db/pkg/? If that's the case reverting it should be a simple matter of restoring that backup and removing ports-mgmt/pkg. This won't 'restore' anything you installed _after_ you ran *pkg2ng* obviously but it's a start.


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## kpa (Jan 22, 2013)

It doesn't use /var/db/pkg/* anymore. The only way at the moment is to re-install with the old package tools.


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## wblock@ (Jan 22, 2013)

Really doesn't seem like it would be too hard to write a small program that reads pkgng package registration info and writes it in the old format.


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## nORKy (Jan 22, 2013)

SirDice said:
			
		

> I'm not sure but doesn't pkgng store a backup of the 'old' package registrations in /var/db/pkg/? If that's the case reverting it should be a simple matter of restoring that backup and removing ports-mgmt/pkg. This won't 'restore' anything you installed _after_ you ran *pkg2ng* obviously but it's a start.



yes : /var/db/pkg.bak


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