Re: Newbie: General ports management

[Marc Espie <espie@nerim.net>]

On Sun, Jun 23, 2002 at 02:44:22AM +0200, Marcus Bointon wrote:
> Except when I want to recompile a new version with the same configuration -
> It seems that the configure options are stored in the Makefile, which is in
> the ports tree. I guess I just need to be careful to open Makefiles and note
> down configure options before trashing things. How do people normally keep
> track of this stuff? Working it out from scratch each time is a recipe for
> trouble (a web site doesn't work because I forgot esoteric option xxx when
> recompiling PHP...). It all just seems very manual and unreliable. I can't
> believe it's meant to be like this - am I missing something?

You're not supposed to tinker with Makefiles, at all.
If you don't find what you're looking for in the ports FLAVORS, there might
be a few reasons for it: either it doesn't work properly, or the port
maintainer did not find that option necessary, or it was overlooked.

Note that the various ports are interlocked through dependencies. Tinkering
in a specific port when you don't know what you're doing (as looks likely)
is indeed a very bad idea, and highly unreliable.

Next time you feel like trying to tinker, just ask instead, okay ?
If your wants are legitimate, someone will probably be willing to look at
the port and fix it.