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Old 12th March 2012
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sparky View Post
how do I fetch the Ports collection or Ports tree???
"Ports" refers to the source code + Makefile infrastructure needed to build third-party applications sanctioned by the OpenBSD project. "Packages" are the result of building ports.

Most users of OpenBSD should only be concerned about installing packages which is covered in Section 15 of the project's official FAQ. Rarely should general users need to build from the ports tree.

Repeating, the build process builds packages before installation. These are the same packages available on the mirror sites, so unless there is a specific reason to build, most users should be installing from the mirror sites as opposed to building themselves.
Quote:
What is confusing is that there are no tools such as portsnap or portmanager in order to handle the downloading and building and management of ports.
pkg_add(1), pkg_info(1), & pkg_delete(1) all deal with the management of packages. The ports tree itself is updated via cvs(1) commmands as discussed in Section 5.3.3 of the FAQ. If you have the official CD set, the ports tree can be found & installed from there.
Quote:
My previous experience I would put the source code into the /usr/ports/distfiles folder; but there isn't a /usr/ports/ directory on OpenBSD so I'm totally lost.
The ports tree (/usr/ports/) is not installed as part of the installation process. This will need to be manually added according to Section 5.3.3 as previously mentioned.

The FAQ is the single best starting point for newcomers to OpenBSD. You will save yourself significant time & aggravation by taking the time now to study its contents.
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