NetBSD 4.0: your experiences with binary / source pkgs?

[anomie]

[ I posted a similar query on the other forum just before it imploded, so this may sound familiar to some of you. ]

The situation is this:

• I'm a NetBSD novice.
• I have installed NetBSD 4.0 on an old laptop.
• I want to install binary packages only.

Due to some issues I've run into installing binary packages (which I am not interested in discussing in this particular thread), I thought it would be a good idea if I solicited feedback from other NetBSD users.

My questions: Have you installed binary packages on NetBSD 4.0? If so, did you find the experience to be mostly trouble free?

I am asking this to try to determine whether binary packages are really a viable option, or if source packages are the way to go for things to work smoothly. (Either outcome is OK. I just want to know where I should be spending my time and energy.)

Any feedback gratefully received.

[ocicat]

Originally Posted by anomie

Have you installed binary packages on NetBSD 4.0? If so, did you find the experience to be mostly trouble free?

I run NetBSD on old, obsolete, & exotic hardware. Since the project cross-compiles everything on AMD64 boxes, I am doing more for the microscopic community who still uses Cobalt boxes by testing via this route than taking a more obvious path. If I was using more generic Intel hardware, I might do approach system management differently, but this isn't the case.

[anomie]

And, ironically (or not), it may be that usage cases resembling yours will be more common than what I'm trying to do. Thanks for the reply.

If any additional NetBSD 4.0 users would be willing to share their experiences I'd appreciate it.

[disi]

I am a newbie to BSD, too

What I noticed is that if you go away from standard compiler settings, it breaks packages. I just added my arch like "COPTS?=-march=pentium -mcpu=pentium4 -O2 -pipe" and got compiler errors in a few packages.

That shows me, that there is no need to compile from source if I have to use generic settings. Doing an update with pkg_chk shows there is no outdated package in source or binary.

[anomie]

Originally Posted by disi

That shows me, that there is no need to compile from source if I have to use generic settings.

That's an interesting point. And (assuming for now it is true) I am inclined to agree; the main issue then becomes whether all the binary packages I need are being offered from the mirrors. I think I'm going to need to hit the docs again and practice some more.

Thanks for the note.

[disi]

Just checked again:

DISI-NetBSD# pkg_chk -uskn
pkgtools/pkg_chk - pkg_chk-1.91 < pkg_chk-1.92
16:46 /usr/pkg/sbin/pkg_delete -K /var/db/pkg -r pkg_chk-1.91

This is the package, that would get upgraded from source.

here, if I switch to binary:

DISI-NetBSD# pkg_chk -bnP ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD-3.1/i386/All/ -u
converters/php-iconv - php4-iconv-4.4.8 missing (binary package available)
databases/php-mysql - php4-mysql-4.4.8 missing (binary package available)
devel/autoconf - autoconf-2.62 < autoconf-2.61 (binary package available)
devel/glib2 - glib2-2.16.3nb1 < glib2-2.14.6 (binary package available)
devel/libidn - libidn-1.8 < libidn-1.5 (binary package available)
devel/m4 - m4-1.4.11nb1 < m4-1.4.11 (binary package available)
devel/popt - popt-1.14 < popt-1.10.7 (binary package available)
devel/yasm - yasm-0.7.0 < yasm-0.6.2 (binary package available)
graphics/MesaLib - MesaLib-7.0.3.2 < MesaLib-6.4.2nb3 (binary package available)
graphics/glu - glu-7.0.3.2 < glu-6.4.2 (binary package available)
multimedia/libtheora - libtheora-1.0beta3 < libtheora-1.0beta2 (binary package available)
net/wget - wget-1.11.1 < wget-1.11 (binary package available)
pkgtools/pkg_chk - pkg_chk-1.91 < pkg_chk-1.90 (binary package available)
pkgtools/pkg_install - pkg_install-20080423 < pkg_install-20080313 (binary package available)
security/php-mcrypt - php4-mcrypt-4.4.8 missing (binary package available)
textproc/libxml2 - libxml2-2.6.32 < libxml2-2.6.31 (binary package available)
www/ap-php - ap13-php4-4.4.8nb1 missing (binary package available)

As you see, the packages are a bit different in the version

//edit: grmpf that would be the update to 3.1 NetBSD it should be the URL ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD-4.0/i386/All/

[anomie]

Some closure to this thread for now: I decided to reinstall NetBSD 4.0 from scratch, this time with a more comprehensive selection of "sets". (My first install was pretty minimalist.) For whatever reason(s), I am not seeing the plethora of issues I had previously when trying to install binary packages.

Anyway, thanks to both of you for providing feedback for me to mull over.

I'm posting this from my NetBSD 4.0 laptop.

[s0xxx]

Originally Posted by anomie

My questions: Have you installed binary packages on NetBSD 4.0? If so, did you find the experience to be mostly trouble free?

I run NetBSD on a laptop myself, and have used binary packages without any problems. I am fairly new to NetBSD too, but also see that binary packages come late a bit in comparison to source packages (FreeBSD ports also?). To me that is not much of a problem.

[anomie]

Originally Posted by anomie

My questions: Have you installed binary packages on NetBSD 4.0? If so, did you find the experience to be mostly trouble free?

Well, this 'binary package-only' idea has come to an end.

Today I needed to install the Sun JRE. Of course, there is no package for it due to that annoying legal stuff. So I finally graduated up to installing from source. It works just fine.

[ocicat]

Originally Posted by anomie

Today I needed to install the Sun JRE. Of course, there is no package for it due to that annoying legal stuff.

Note this is only short-lived. With Sun's announcements to open Java fully as Open Source, this restriction will be lifted in time.

[Randux]

I ran a "laptop from hell" with OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Solaris just to say I did it.

I learned a lot (but not nearly enough) about the first three and still can't figure out Solaris' file structure. Depending on what platform you use, you may find that most things you want and I don't mean just huge stuff like JRE just doesn't have a binary package. I built virtually everything from source on NetBSD. Pkgsrc is fantastic.