Ok, I finally decided to try FreeBSD 5.3 RELEASE (again), this time though, I intend to use it for a while unlike the first time that I installed it just to have a feel of what it was like. So far, so good, but there are several packages I would like to update/install and need a few pointers. Firstly is there a GTK version of firefox 1.0 for FreeBSD, if so where can I get it. I know I can get firefox using the ports system but I don't think it's gtk enabled. Secondly, I have seen some KDE 3.3.2 packages at fruit salad, how do I upgrade my current KDE version using these packages. Unfortunately, the documentation on the FreeBSD page on the kde.org site is a bit sparse. Thanks.

Ahhh yes. The "salad bar" as many call it. You pretty much to tweak your package variable to tell it to use fruit salad is alll. And they telll you what you need to do for that on the front page of the fruit salad site:

export PACKAGESITE=

Then you applicable platform (i386) for example. Then your going to use package add.

I did that, but then I get an error saying that kde.tbz is not found. I have managed to compile xfce 4.2 so I am using that at the moment whilst I try and figure out this KDE thingy.

You know I haven't used pkg add in a while. But then again, if you want to run KDE 3.3, you really don't need the fruitsalad site. You can get that just by updating your ports.

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO...ook/cvsup.html

First you will want to make sure your ports are up to date, so running cvsup is the first step. It's really quite simple. For example, my cvsup:

code:

$ cat cvsup.ports
*default host=cvsup17.FreeBSD.org
*default base=/usr
*default prefix=/usr
*default release=cvs tag=.
*default delete use-rel-suffix
# If you seem to be limited by CPU rather than
network or disk bandwidth, try
# commenting out the following line. (Normally,
today's CPUs are fast enough
# that you want to run compression.)
*default compress
## Ports Collection.
#
# The easiest way to get the ports tree is to
use the "ports-all"
# mega-collection. It includes all of the
individual "ports-*"
# collections,
ports-all

So, to update your ports you could if you wanted to, copy this text, save it as cvsup.ports. Then...

code

$sudo cvsup -g -L 2 cvsup.ports

I use sudo because I feel it is more secure than su. However, you can su to root if you would like if you have your machine setup to do so. Regardless, you'll need root to do this. This will go and update your ports collection under /usr/ports. Once that is done, you should be able to:

code:

#pkgdb -F

This will create a database of all the new software you can install now that you have updated your ports. I myself like to go through and upgrade everything pretty frequently in terms of ports I have installed. So I:

code:

#portupgrade -a

This will upgrade everything you have installed that can be upgraded through the ports. Following these steps will also give you the same KDE release that is available on Fruitsalad. And frankly, I think this method is much cleaner. That is just my opinion. The whole export PACKAGESITE process was always a pain for me. I always wound with the same error you had. Well...not always. But it was always a struggle. I would get through it, but only after beating my head against the wall a couple of times. I know that is just because I did it wrong. But this method I have described works very well and will keep you up to date on more than just KDE all in one whack.

ok, I'll try that now and see how it goes.

Thanks for the tips, I am finally getting comfortable with FreeBSD and it's package management tools. Once I finish upgrading my ports, I am going to spend some time going through the manual.

Yep. No prob. I think your going to find you get real comfortable real quick. Once you make it through what your going through now, your good to go.

Ok, I updated most of my ports apart from 7 errors due to missing perl gettext, I have looked in the perl section using sysinstall, but i can't find it. Also got an error when trying to install kdebase 3.3.2 => "could not fetch local modification time does not match remote" How do I fix these errors?

Interesting. I have never had that happen. Did a little google and came up with this interesting bit:

http://www.editcorp.com/Personal/Lar...et/wget_5.html

I might try cvsup again if I were you. If that doesn't work, I'm hoping some of the gurus will drop by.I'm curious about this one.

Ok, I have narrowed down some of my problems to perl. I had to deinstall perl gettext and perl xml parser, reinstall them then did the procedure you showed me above, now I can install software again from ports. I gotta tackle the KDE problem now, which I think may turn out to be another minor thing I am glad though coz over the last three days the problems I have had have gave me a lot more insight into how FreeBSD works. I may just try Gentoo just to see how their ports system works compared to FreeBSD.

What else does this do?

I had an issue where after I installed Firefox 1.0 and it upgraded Libpango and Atk to a new version my gaim and gimp stopped working. Would this correct the issue and make them use the newer versions?

Another thing you can do get get the current packages is set you PACKAGESITE to something like this.
PACKAGESITE=ftp://ftp2.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-5-stable/All/
and do a portupgrade for packages only. The FreeBSD team keeps this updated. I've gotten where I don't portupgrade -a much anymore, just use the package only attribute.

Idea shamelessly stolen from someone.

http://taosecurity.blogspot.com I think. If not... sorry to the one that gave me this idea.

One more thing that occured to me on the perl issue is make sure you issue;
# use.perl ports

and add this to your /etc/make.conf
PERL_VER=5.6.1
PERL_VERSION=5.6.1
PERL_ARCH=mach
NOPERL=yo
NO_PERL=yo
NO_PERL_WRAPPER=yo

Well, I got the KDE installation started using the ports system by downloading the required KDE packages into /usr/ports/distfiles/kde3. The error, I was getting is the following,

fetch: kdebase-3.3.2.tar.bz2: local modification time does not match remote
Couldn't fetch it - please try to retrieve this port manually into /usr/ports/distfiles/kde3 and try again.
Error code 1

Anyway, now I that the KDE thingy is sorted, though I don't know if it was the right way to fix it, I am now trying to see if I can get flash, java and realplayer plugins working.

Not necessarily. What this does is make sure your list of ports are the newest. So if you used the portupgrade -a command, it upgraded every port that had a newer version out than what you had installed. The pkgdb command just creates a updates list of available packages. In your case, it sounds as though there were some dependancies for Firefox and those were resolved, but broke gaim and gimp in the process. So a common dependancy caused the break I would venture. And again, if you did the portupgrade -a and it did not upgrade gaim and gimp, it seems safe to venture that no new verisons are available. However, it might be worth a try to change the applicable /usr/ports directory and do a make deinstall and try to install them again. Perhaps if they are compiled with the upgraded dependancies in place they will work.