Does FreeBSD 4.10-STABLE have more up-to-date software ports available than 5.2.1-CURRENT, or is this a matter of updating the ports tree?

You always want to keep your ports updated for security/bug fixes. Most important is reading /usr/ports/UPDATING after you cvsup your port tree. Good habit to do it often and portupgrade -aRu your ports. There's a lot more to it like running pkgdb. Setup your supfile for ports and docs, and it will do all the work for you except the actual portupdate command, but you could include it in a script.

How?..Why?..What?..Where?..


Why cant I, or how can I install more current versions of KDE?

The version provided in FreeBSD 5.2.1-R is a bit out-dated. I have updated my ports (i think?), and the latest available version still is 3.1.4.


This brings me to my confusion about the different "versions" of FreeBSD.

Im using FreeBSD 5.2.1-R. Does this limit the availability of updated ports, like KDE in this case? If so; are the ports updated in the next RELEASE (5.3?) version of FreeBSD, so that I can update my system then? ..or what?

Is the latest STABLE version a pre-RELEASE version in development, or is this another version of FreeBSD by itself? If pre-release; how can I update/convert/install my system as a STABLE version?

The CURRENT version sound to unstable, so I'll drop that discussion...

...

You use the cvsup <supfile for ports name> to upgrade your ports. In the supfile, the tag is set as cvs tag=. meaning you get current as;
*default release=cvs tag=.
That's all you'll get which is current.

You may have updated your ports tree, but may not have updated your apps. I don't know, just guessing.

5.2.1 does not limit your version of ports. I'm using the same with the latest ports tree.

Do this and report back what it says.
pkg_version -v | grep kde

And this and report back 'some' of what it says.
pkg_version -vl'<'

Please understand, this forum doesn't know the skill level of everyone and assumed you have read the first topic in the BSD forum, which points you to the FreeBSD Handbook that covers ports.

So lets get started. Do the above commands so I'll know what's on your system.