Re: How to ensure pkgsrc groff is preferred over groff in base

[Eric Haszlakiewicz <erh%nimenees.com@localhost>]

On May 30, 2015 11:18:44 AM EDT, "William A. Mahaffey III" <wam%hiwaay.net@localhost> wrote:
>On 05/30/15 09:02, Gerard Lally wrote:
>> I posted the following question here, to netbsd-users, instead of
>> pkgsrc-users because it is connected to that thread.
>>
>> What is the correct way to ensure pkgsrc binaries and libraries are
>> used instead of their equivalents in base? For example, after
>installing
>> pkgsrc groff I now have groff, grn, grodvi, grog and more in both
>> /usr/bin and /usr/pkg/bin. Do I create multiple aliases, or just
>change
>> $PATH so that /usr/pkg/bin is before /usr/bin? For user, and/or root?
>> Would changing $PATH create other problems elsewhere?
>>
>> I realise this is basic UNIX stuff I should understand better; it's
>> just that I would like to know the standard or correct way of doing
>it.

>Unless someone else more knowledgeable says otherwise, I would put 
>/usr/pkg/bin ahead of /usr/bin for all users you want it that way & set
>
>sail. Generally, you can put more specific directories ahead of the
>most 
>general directories in your path shell variables, that is what most 
>commercial packages do in their install scripts, & it is what I prefer.

I've found that having copies of programs in the base when you want to be using the pkgsrc ones is fairly error prone.  If simply changing the PATH works for you great, but I've needed to take a more heavy handed approach in the past.
In an ideal world the base groff would be recorded in a form where you could just pkg_delete it, but since it's not I'd recommend deleting the unneeded binaries by hand.

Eric