Re: Removing Sendmail

On 2003-04-02 23:28, Dan Naumov <dan.naumov_at_ofw.fi> wrote:
>On Wed, 2 Apr 2003 21:56:40 +0200
>Wilko Bulte <wkb_at_freebie.xs4all.nl> wrote:
>>On Wed, Apr 02, 2003 at 02:29:30PM -0500, John Baldwin wrote:
>>>
>>> I find an odd situation here whenever this topic comes up.  One the
>>> one hand, people are always wanting to split the entire base system
>>> up into small packages for each little piece of the base.  On the
>>> other hand, one of FreeBSD's selling points in real-world
>>> environments is that it doesn't have a bunch of little packages for
>>> the base system like Linux distros.  Do people really prefer
>>> something like having rpm's for /bin/ps to having one lump base dist
>>> for all of /bin, /sbin, etc.?
>>
>> <Barf><Puke> One of the worst mis-features of Linux in my book.
>
> I think being able to update just about ANYTHING, except the kernel
> without the need for a reboot is one of the best features of Linux and
> actual advantages it has over FreeBSD.

Well, this can be done in FreeBSD too.  In general, you can update
parts with:

	# cd /usr/src/some/path
	# make clean
	# make depend && make all
	# make install

You will find that this often requires a lot of care and attention,
and a whole lot of effort, just to avoid ending up with a mess.

I'm positively sure that the same sort of care should be used when
upgrading parts of a Linux system too.  After 6 years of being a
Slackware user who upgraded everything by compiling tarballs, apart
from the occasional libc version which I installed as a precompiled
package, I can tell you it felt like walking on a slippery slope a lot
of the time :-)

It's good to be able to upgrade a "base system" in one fell swoop.
At least, it's good to me.

- Giorgos