Re: [OT] Re: Knocking Microsoft

[Paul Schmehl <pauls () utdallas edu>]

--On Saturday, February 28, 2004 8:22 AM -0800 Tim 
<tim-security () sentinelchicken org> wrote:

> > Yeah, that's *way* easier than FreeBSD's %make install clean.
>
> The ports heirarchy is great for what it is.  But it doesn't do a lot of
> things necessary for keeping high-availability when it comes time to
> patch your daemons on 20+ systems.  Now, I haven't used FreeBSD since
> 4.X days, so maybe they have fixed some of the brain damage, but in a
> system that it is possible to install the same port over the top of
> itself...  Ever installed a new version of a port on top of an old one,
> then tried removing the old one?

First of all, why would you do this?  Secondly, it won't work because the 
port will simply tell you that it's already installed and suggest you 
uninstall the previous version first.  If you're going to use ports, you 
should use portupgrade to upgrade to new versions.

>  Doesn't work too well.  Ever tried
> maintaining systems with both ports and packages?

No, but why would you?  Choose one method or the other and stick with it.

>  IIRC, it doesn't work
> so well either.  The time to compile is also a pain (but can be remedied
> if you compile into a package on a *dedicated* build server).
I guess that's a matter of perspective.  I prefer compiling to using 
packages, because they're tailored to the system.  Packages are more 
"generic" by their very nature.

> Don't get me wrong, FreeBSD's ports system is WAY better than dependency
> handling on windoze (if you can even call it that), and is perfectly
> sufficient if you only have a few boxes to maintain.
And who has a good system for maintaining large numbers of boxes?

Paul Schmehl (pauls () utdallas edu)
Adjunct Information Security Officer
The University of Texas at Dallas
AVIEN Founding Member
http://www.utdallas.edu

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