compare and contrast MacPorts/other pkg managers? (was Re: portupgrade)

paul beard paulbeard at gmail.com
Wed Oct 17 16:54:05 PDT 2007


As a longtime FreeBSD user, I agree portupgrade[1] sets a pretty high
standard. It seems a bit redundant at this date to port something that
effectively replicates what MacPorts itself does. Much as it might be
fun to tinker with it, would a feature comparison be worth reviewing
to see how much duplication there is, and what features would be worth
adding?

The bi-directional dependency checking, as mentioned, is nice. I also
like the ability to stop and start running daemons when they are
upgraded. Making packages for deployment elsewhere or simply for
backup/archiving is also nice, especially if you have multiple
machines to manage.

And there are a few ports tools to look at if you're that curious:

[/usr/ports/ports-mgmt]:: ls
Makefile                pkg_replace             portlint
barry                   pkg_rmleaves            portmanager
bpkg                    pkg_trackinst           portmaster
bpm                     pkg_tree                portmk
genplist                pkgfe                   portscout
instant-tinderbox       pkgsearch               portsearch
jailaudit               port-authoring-tools    portsman
kports                  port-maintenance-tools  portsnap
managepkg               portaudit               portsopt
newportsversioncheck    portaudit-db            porttools
p5-FreeBSD-Portindex    portbrowser             portupgrade
p5-FreeBSD-Ports        portcheck               portupgrade-devel
pib                     portcheckout            psearch
pkg-orphan              portconf                qtpkg
pkg_cutleaves           portdowngrade           tinderbox
pkg_install             porteasy                vulnerability-test-port
pkg_install-devel       portell
pkg_remove              portless


1. http://www.gsp.com/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=1&topic=portupgrade
-- 
Paul Beard / www.paulbeard.org/
<paulbeard at gm​ail.com/paulbeard at mac.com>


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