what are ports, what is the benifit of them .. why people created ports...

personally.. i used basic applications without the need of ports.
for example in installed samba without any port
i installed nmap without any port
i installed php without any port
i installed apache without any port


why people use ports?
what make is wize to use ports?

tell me any thing about ports.



best regards

The ports system has several advantages.

1) You know it will work with the libraries you have or will install dependancies that shouldn't break anything else.
2) The ports will work with FreeBSD and will be patched to work with the system.
3) They create a package description which allows you to easily remove the port at a later time if you don't want it or upgrade the port if you need to.

I am sure there is other stuff but these are the big three in my head. You don't "need" the ports system to install anything. But it is nice to be able to do it all with one command "make install clean" and watch as it finds the source, the dependencies, and builds it all.

So they dont have to go to 5 different websites to find the files they need. Instead they use the ports and dont have to visit a bunch of websites.

cool


now how to use ports?


i installed ports in /usr/ports

and now i want to install RPM

i went to /usr/ports/rpm and i typed this:-

./install.sh

but it didnt work and generated an errorr message showing a link of a file on ftp.freeBSD web site


what is the poblem?

Why do you want to install a RPM, red hat package manager?

Go find the program you want in ports for example:

>cd /usr/ports/www/firefox
> su root
# make install clean

Learn to update your ports tree properly or else you will run into problems.

Look for cvsup ports in the FreeBSD docs and around here or at bsdforums.com to get an idea.