Re: Package installation WHICHTO

[Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost>]

Daddy Cool <simurghiyan%gmail.com@localhost> writes:

> What is the effective, if any, difference between:
> 'pkg_add i3' (example) and
> 'pkgin up; pkgin in i3' ?

pkg_add and pkgin have different configs for where packages come from.
But I'll assume you have them pointing to the same place.

pkgin as a database of what's installed.  You can do things like "pkgin
sk" and "pkgin -n ar". to get info from it.   pkg_add intalls the
package, while pkgin installs the package and keeps pkgin's database in
sync.

While it seems that pkgin will self-update its database, I would
recommend that if you are using pkgin on a system, that you try to
always use it, vs bare pkg_add.  But I have not observed any real
trouble from mixing.

> I get that pkgin is analogous to penguinista 'apt' or 'yum' -- but so is
> too pkg_add, as opposed to pkgsrc's ./configure, acceptable_licence,
> pkg_vulnerabilties, Stop. and friends.

pkg_add is less than apt/yum, in that it will add a package (and
dependencies), but doesn't have the "show keep", "autoremove", "upgrade
all" functionality.

> Therefore, is either pkg_add or pkgin in the -preferred- or -recommended-
> way to go about things, all being equal? Or it doesn't matter either way?

The NetBSD tradition, following ancient UNIX traditions, is that there
are multiple tools and you are free to choose.  I would say that if
pkgin works (because there is a binary package set available with a
summary file), then it's probably better to just use pkgin.  Or, you can
only use the base tools and never use pkgin.