Re: CVS removal from the base

On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 9:40 PM, Adrian Chadd <adrian_at_freebsd.org> wrote:

> The problem I have with all of this is pretty simple.
>
> With the CVS in base, it's treated like the (mostly) rest of the
> system in a stable release - ie, people don't simply keep updating it
> to the latest and greatest without some testing. If there are any
> critical bugs or security flaws, they're backported. The port isn't
> upgraded unless it has to be, and then if it's a major update, there
> are plenty of eyeballs to review it. It's in /src, after all.
>
> But with ports, the ports tree only has the "latest" version or two;
> sometimes a few major versions to choose from (eg apache), but we
> don't maintain the same kind of package versions that Linux operating
> system packages do.
>
> So it's entirely possible the "CVS" port maintainer updates the port
> to the latest and greatest, which works for him - and it breaks
> someone's older CVS repository somehow.
>
> I'd be happier with the idea of things moving into ports if the ports
> tree did have stable snapshots which had incremental patches for
> bug/security fixes, rather than "upgrade to whatever the port
> maintainer chooses."
>
> I'm all for change, but it seems those pushing forward change seem to
> be far exceeding the comfortable level of more conservative people; or
> those with real needs. Those who have relied on FreeBSD's stable
> release source tree being that - stable - whilst ports moves along
> with the latest and greatest as needed. It doesn't matter that you may
> do a fantastic job with a stable CVS  port - what matters is how
> people perceive what you're doing. It just takes one perceived screwup
> here for the view to shift that "freebsd is going the way of linux".
> And then we lose a whole lot of what public "good" opinion FreeBSD
> has. ;-)
>
> 2c,
>
> Adrian
>



Over the years , by installing and studying many operating system
distributions , my opinions
for FreeBSD has been converged toward the following :


Supplying only a console-mode FreeBSD as a release is making FreeBSD
unusable for
peoples who they are not computing experts .


To allow less experienced people to use FreeBSD easily , it is necessary to
include a
selected ports/packages into release distributions , therefore into
so-called BASE as a
/ports or /packages part .


When a new FreeBSD release will be installed ,  it is becoming necessary to
install many packages additionally , and setting many parameters in the
*.conf , etc. , files to make it usable . One unfortunate situation is that
some packages are NOT working at the release moment . In the packages tree
, it seems that there is no any regular update policy for a specific
release . It is possible to "make port_name" , but this is NOT so much
usable also : For a specific package  , which is installing within less
than 30 minutes by pkg_add , required more than eighteen hours by "make
..." . Reason was that MAKE is an extremely STUPID system ( without BRAIN )
because , it is NOT able to remember that it has completed making a package
part a few seconds before , and it is starting the same steps to apply up
to the point that it is not necessary to make it once more ( after applying
many steps which was applied before ) .


One immediate reaction to such an idea is to mention PC-BSD . If the PC-BSD
is the solution , what is the reason of maintaining a large FreeBSD ports
tree and consuming a huge amount of efforts to manage a so large repository
?


Another possibility is FreeBSD/Debian combination . When compared to
Linux/Debian , it is unusable also , because , I do NOT know the reason ,
it is VERY slow .


I am NOT suggesting to include as many packages as possible : Just an
"OPTIMUM" number of packages  to allow the users to have a working
installation "out of the box" .


It is possible to obtain an idea if there is a statistics set about
downloaded packages by pkg_add . After setting a percentage to satisfy user
needs ,  it will be easy to make a list of packages to include .


Even myself I am NOT using FreeBSD , because I am NOT able to use it :


For example , 9.0 RC2 : There is NO KDE4 at this moment , KDE3 is NOT
working , GNOME2 is NOT working ,  the others I am NOT using because they
are not capable as much as KDE or GNOME .

If such a selected packages maintained  within BASE  /ports , or  /packages
, there will NOT be such difficulties to use the FreeBSD ( difficulty is
transferred from the user to FreeBSD teams ) .


Thank you very much .

Mehmet Erol Sanliturk