FreeBSD. Ports, Packages, and Software Updates

FreeBSD comes with a rich set of system utilities as part of its base system. However, the need to install additional applications from third-party developers arises very soon.

FreeBSD provides two complementary technologies for installing third-party software on your system:

• The FreeBSD Ports Collection
• Binary software packages

Either of these systems can be used to install the latest versions of your favorite applications from local media or directly from the network.

The article BSD vs Linux. What Is a “Port”? will help answer the question “What are ports and packages?” Here, we’ll talk about how to work with this whole system.

Packages

Installing a package

pkg_add -r название_пакета

where “-r” means “remote”, i.e., it will be downloaded from the Internet.

List of installed packages

pkg_info

or information about a package

pkg_info название_пакета

Removing a package

pkg_delete название_пакета

Package version

pkg_version название_пакета

Finding Software

To check whether a piece of software is installed, you can use:

whereis название_пакета

(which/locate/find) and

pkg_info | grep название_пакета

I also recommend www.freshports.org for finding packages and ports!

Ports

Installation

make install
make install clean

Installation with automatic acceptance of the default configurations for ports:

make -DBATCH install clean

Reinstallation

make reinstall

Removal

make deinstall

Cleaning up intermediate build files

make clean

Cleaning up downloaded files

make distclean

Pre-installation configuration (otherwise, installation will use the configuration saved during the previous build)

make config

Finding a port by keyword

make search key=КЛЮЧ

Finding a port by name

make search name=ИМЯ

Show a list of a port’s dependencies

make all-depends-list

Example,

cd /usr/ports/www/apache22/
make config
make install clean

These are the basic commands; more details are available on the official FreeBSD Handbook page. Or see the file /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk

After Installing Software

I recommend running “rehash” so that you can use “program” directly instead of typing the full path “/path/to/program”:

# rehash

Updating the Ports Tree

The portsnap utility has been included in the base distribution since FreeBSD 6.0; for earlier versions, it needs to be installed (/usr/ports/sysutils/portsnap/).

For the first update, run the following commands:

portsnap fetch && portsnap extract

For subsequent updates

portsnap fetch update

Example,

cd /usr/ports/
portsnap fetch && portsnap extract

More details here.

Updating a Port

The portupgrade utility must be installed first!

cd /usr/ports/sysutils/portupgrade/
make install clean

Updating

portupgrade название_программы

If you want to update only a specific application rather than the entire database, use portupgrade pkgname, with the -r flag if portupgrade should process all packages that depend on the specified package, and use the -R flag to process all packages that the specified packages require.

To install a port (while fixing dependency problems, etc.), run it with the “-N” flag:

portupgrade -N название_программы

More details about portupgrade here and here.

P.S. I use the ports system, and I recommend that you do too.