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Old 5th May 2011
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by qmemo View Post
I wished to join the porters list by lifting some of the work load 'building packages', but asking those who're involved just led to understand that there are already enough people building packages. My conversations just ended concluding that AMD is more preferred than i386 when we're speaking about ports and packages and helping OpenBSD'S community "dunno how, thought I 'd figure out with time'
I gather, then, that you would like to verify new ports to OpenBSD even if others are already doing the job. Okay, that's a reasonable starting point, & I now see why you were asking about frequently updating. Ports are to be verified against the latest -current.
Quote:
like I said, I was trying to be in the porters list, now it's kinda just see what do -current looks like, I mean which life style will be enforced on me my using it.
Again, backups of important data should be a close friend. Backups of everything isn't required.

So in time, I assume you will either be posting on ports@ or directly to the authors. As a recommendation, stick to facts when posting. Editorializing will only get you into trouble. If your contributions are consistently correct & factual, you will begin to slowly build a positive reputation. Anything less than this will cause others to simply ignore your comments.

In the beginning, you might want to read ports@ looking for messages verifying new packages or updates to current packages. Pick what seems interesting & repeat their work. Update your installation to the latest -current snapshot, download the current ports tree, & try to duplicate their work. Get the process down first. The first few times may take hours. Learn to make your actions more efficient. You need to be comfortable with replicating the environment before you can begin thinking about contributing to any discussion. Once you understand the environment & know how to recreate it, you can begin building packages.

Depending upon the age of your laptop (& pointedly your hard drive...), you should study the misc@ archives, so you are aware of the symptoms of a dying drive. Be aware of replacement costs, so sticker shock doesn't punch you in the gut. Things happen. It is better to be prepared for them.

Also as a recommendation, unless you have a fast laptop (greater than 2GHz...), avoid big applications such as GNOME & LibreOffice. You can easily spend a day (or more) watching the screen continuously scroll when building big applications.

Lastly, script(1) can be your friend when trying to isolate build errors.

Good luck in your quest.
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