pkgsrc – Page 19 – DragonFly BSD Digest

2010/11/202010/11/20

pkg_radd: oddly successful with upgrades

The utility pkg_add has a -u option that tells it to upgrade any existing matched package with a given binary package. Since pkg_radd passes options on to the underlying use of pkg_add, after automatically setting a remote repository for binary files, pkg_radd -u <packagename> tells pkg_add to automatically find and upgrade a package.

I never thought this would work. However, I’m building a package on a system that has pkgsrc-2010Q1 packages installed, but a pkgsrc-2010Q3 /usr/pkgsrc. Every time I’ve encountered an error because installed software was too low a version, pkg_radd -uv <package_name> has resulted in a quick upgrade.

I’m not recommending this as a new upgrade method; I’m noting how unexpectedly well this experiment is going. It may be just blind luck, but this sure would be nice if it ‘just worked’.

2010/11/172010/11/17

Building Java, again

Francois Tigeot was able to get wip/jdk15 to build on DragonFly, from pkgsrc-wip. Unfortunately, the package has been removed, but he’s looking to put it back.

2010/11/11

A fix for docbook and pkgsrc issues

A number of people have encountered this: while installing some larger pkgsrc package, the process stops on a strange DocBook error. Alex Hornung has a fix: symlink /usr/pkg/etc/xml/catalog to /usr/pkg/share/xml/catalog.

2010/11/10

Dovecot upgrade

Dovecot, a rather popular IMAP/POP3 mail server, has had version 2 arrive in pkgsrc. There’s an upgrade guide on pkgsrc-users@ if you’re thinking of upgrading.

2010/10/202010/10/21

KDE4 patches to try

Alex Hornung has some patches that allow KDE4 to build on DragonFly. They aren’t in pkgsrc and not all in KDE yet, so try them out directly if you want KDE4, for now.

Update: based on something Alex said on IRC… they’re in KDE4 now.

2010/10/06

Chroot and pkgsrc tips

Chris Turner wrote some notes about building pkgsrc packages in a chroot, including the handy tip of using

DISPLAY=:0

to run and display a GUI-using app under the chroot.

2010/10/04

Firefox fix found

If you’re running DragonFly 2.7 and you’ve noticed Firefox crashing on you, Matthew Dillon has some potential fixes. Update/rebuild to see if it helps.

2010/09/302010/09/30

Git mirror for pkgsrc being rebuilt

Our mirror of the never-quite-official git repository for pkgsrc is being rebuilt, so it will be temporarily inaccessible. Matthew Dillon is working on building a new one directly from pkgsrc CVS, which will have a different link.

Update: It’s finished. Matthew Dillon’s posted a summary of the changes and what you need to update in order to use it.

2010/09/292010/10/01

Flash 9 on DragonFly

Chris Turner wrote up his experience of getting Flash 9 to work on DragonFly. The usual disclaimers apply.

Update: there’s an improved library available that fixes some audio and video sync problems.

2010/09/27

Revised pkgsrc guide

I’ve drastically revamped the pkgsrc howto on the dragonflybsd.org website. It’s also linked in that site’s menu, too. Comments please!

2010/09/27

Don’t upgrade, do recompile

A bump in shared library version for libssl/libcrypto means that any programs dependent on it will require a rebuild – including any pkgsrc programs.

This only affects you if you are running 2.7, for now. It means that on upgrading from 2.6 to 2.8, any libssl-using programs will need to be updated. This may not be a big thing, since pkgsrc-2010Q3 will also be out and people will want to upgrade anyway.

2010/09/26

Lazy Reading: subversion, packaging, beams

A small crop for Lazy Reading this week – oh well.

Bad things about SVN. I’ve always thought git is more interesting, but subversion is easier. Oh well. The article is also fun for the unfiltered Windows-hate.
At least this hasn’t happened yet with pkgsrc.
What happens if you put your hand in the way of the Large Hadron Collider beam? (via)

2010/09/262010/09/29

Binary package upgrade issue

I’ve noticed that if you have older pkgsrc packages installed, and install binary packages for pkgsrc-2010Q2, those packages will refuse to install if pkg_install is an older version than what they were built with.

I ended up force-deleting pkg_install and bmake, and reinstalling by running pkgtools/bootstrap/bootstrap. There may be better solutions; I’m mentioning it now since it’s a known problem.

Update: “bmake replace USE_DESTDIR=yes” was suggested by Joerg Sonnenberger. “pkg_add -u /path/to/newer/pkg_install” should also work (untested).

This will probably apply to the upcoming pkgsrc-2010Q3, too. Building from source is a workaround for now.

2010/09/252010/09/26

Squid issues

Jan Lentfer updated his version of squid, and had issues; this is a note for anyone else running squid to maybe wait before upgrading. Note that this applies to the development version of squid, not necessarily the pkgsrc version.

Update: No, wait, it’s OK.

2010/09/23

pkgsrc database, compiler changes

I mentioned previously that Postgres 9 is already in pkgsrc, but the flip side of that is both Postgres 8.2, and MySQL 4 are being removed. If you still have these installed, be ready to migrate at your next upgrade.

Oh, and you can switch to clang for building pkgsrc, too.

2010/09/23

2.8 release in a few weeks

It looks like 2.8 will be showing up in a few weeks – mid-October. If things go well, we’ll have prebuilt pkgsrc-2010Q3 binaries to go with it.

2010/09/21

Freeze for pkgsrc-2010Q3 starting soon

Starting September 23rd, pkgsrc will freeze (i.e. bugfixes only) in preparation for the 2010Q3 release, which is planned for one week later, instead of the usual 2 weeks. This release will include some very new software like Postgres 9, too.

2010/09/192010/09/19

rpkgmanager, a want-list based pkgsrc manager

Some time ago, there was an application called pkgmanager, available in pkgsrc-wip. It worked by tracking ‘wanted’ packages in pkgsrc, and upgrading based on that list. It hasn’t been updated in some time, however, and may not even build.

‘Rumko’ has written a replacement, called rpkgmanager. The Gitorious page linked in the previous sentence includes the URL to download the code via Git, so it’s available to try now even though it’s not yet in pkgsrc.

2010/09/132010/09/13

Lazy reading: toeplitz, forking, curating, Nethack

I totally meant to post this yesterday. Oops!

We’re using toeplitz. I just like the name; I don’t understand how it works.
The idea of software forks has been around since, oh, BSD and System V Unix diverged, if not earlier. Here’s an article that talks about forking in general, rather breathlessly. After reading that, read this perhaps more accurate fork parody. (via)
You know what we could use for pkgsrc, and all the other port/package collections? Explanation. They face the same problem phone application stores face: too many programs to easily select what you need. You could certainly build a whole site just around package reviews; it’s even possible to argue that Ubuntu or PC-BSD are built around just making some 3rd-party-app choices ahead of time on an existing operating system. Anyway, here’s an article talking about that idea specifically around the Apple App Store. Please won’t somebody who is not me do something like that for pkgsrc?
This writeup of one man’s experience with Forth gives a good feel for the language, or at least as good a feel as I can understand. Posted in memoriam for our recently departed Forth bootloader. (via) There’s other enjoyable articles on that blog, too.
This describes about two years of my life, except it was mostly Zangband.

2010/09/01

A reference for pkgsrc make, again

There’s a whole lot of options for bmake, used in pkgsrc, and they aren’t immediately obvious. I’ve linked to a reference before, but it’s no longer at that location. However, I found a new link!