Re: pkg_add vs pkgin

["Aleksej Lebedev" <root%zta.lk@localhost>]

Hi, Mayuresh!

Pkg_add/pkg_delete are reliable. Their job, however, is quite
simple:

     - pkg_add is to install packages and their dependencies (if any);
     - pkg_delete is to remove packages and (if requested) those that depend on them.

Pkg_add can perform a very simple upgrade, but if you request to install/upgrade a package that
depends on another package older version of which is already installed on your system
you will get an error as pkg_add will blindly try to install the newer version on top of the old
(and get a conflict).

Pkgin is more advanced: it builds a whole dependency tree and upgrade all dependencies.

--
Aleksej Lebedev

On Fri, May 10, 2019, at 19:10, Mayuresh wrote:
> http://pkgin.net/ says:
> 
>     NetBSD, and more widely, all operating systems relying on pkgsrc have
>     tools like pkg_add and pkg_delete, but those are unable to correctly
>     handle binary upgrades, and sometimes even installation itself. 
> 
> Could someone please clarify what it means? Are pkg_add / del not
> reliable?
> 
> Mayuresh
>