pkg_add -r ? pkgsrc ? Howto install packages ??

[Dmitri Nikulin]

On 7/4/06, Heinrich Rebehn <rebehn at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi list,

today i decided to give DragonflyBSD another try.
I installed from dfly-1.4.4_REL.iso w/o problems.
I then tried to install bash with
# pkg_add -r bash

and received an error about "-r" being illegal.

However,

http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/~justin/handbook/packages-using.html

suggests using pkg_add -r.

man(1) pkg_add does not mention "-r". To make things more puzzling, it
suggests fetching packages from
ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/2.0/i386/All

So, what's the best way to install packages for DragonFly?
This is an ancient artifact from the FreeBSD packaging system which
DragonFly used until 1.4.0. pkgsrc is a lot more maintainable,
especially with regards to portability across multiple platforms, and
generally not being a ridiculous pain for the administrator (no
seriously, no automated package build system should have interactive
prompts).
And you should definitely not be fetching packages for NetBSD 2.0!
Here's the correct URL base:
ftp://packages.stura.uni-rostock.de/pkgsrc-current/DragonFly/RELEASE/i386/All/

It's on the Download page if you want to find it again. To use it with
NetBSD's/pkgsrc's excellent package tools:
# setenv PKG_PATH
ftp://packages.stura.uni-rostock.de/pkgsrc-current/DragonFly/RELEASE/i386/All
# pkg_add -v vim
(csh style - adjust environment variables for your shell)

Unset PKG_PATH when using pkgsrc to build packages.

More advanced magic, like automated package updating, is documented
elsewhere. Meanwhile this will get you the software you want with no
more effort than the FreeBSD style, except that you do have to know
the base URL of the package tree you're using. Save it in your
~/.cshrc as an alias, if you like...
---
Dmitri Nikulin
Centre for Synchrotron Science
Monash University
Victoria 3800, Australia
email: dnikulin at xxxxxxxxx