FAQ.md

pkgng - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Table of Contents

• How can I start using pkgng?
• Is there an equivalent for pkg-orphan/pkg_cutleaves with pkgng?
• How pkgng is different from the FreeBSD pkg_* tools? What is the motivation behind pkgng?
• How pkgng is different from PC-BSD PBI packages?
• What is the difference between pkg delete -y and pkg delete -f?
• Where is pkg info -R, the old pkg_info had -R?
• Can pkgng replace a package with an another version, eg. pkg upgrade pkg-1.0 pkg-2.0?
• How pkgng deals with dependencies?
• The repository format of pkgng is different from the old one. Will pkgng adapt the old format too?
• Does pkg repo include symlinked packages?
• How do I know if I have packages with the same origin?
• How to start working with multi-repos in pkgng?
• Why pkg create is slow?
• Does pkgng work with portaudit?
• When will pkgng be the default package manager?
• How can I use pkgng with portmaster?

Q: How can I start using pkgng?

In order to start using pkgng, please follow the steps below.

Install ports-mgmt/pkg:

    # make -C /usr/ports/ports-mgmt/pkg
    # echo "WITH_PKGNG=yes" >> /etc/make.conf

Now register all packages you have in the pkgng database:

# pkg2ng

And that was it. Please read the man pages for more information on the commands.

Q: Is there an equivalent for pkg-orphan/pkg_cutleaves with pkgng?

pkg autoremove is what you are looking for.

Q: How pkgng is different from the FreeBSD pkg_* tools? What is the motivation behind pkgng?

The README should explain all of that :)

Q: How pkgng is different from PC-BSD PBI packages?

PBI are flat/complete packages, where pkgng do package ports as there are.

Q: What is the difference between pkg delete -y and pkg delete -f?

By default pkgng will ask before doing something, -y == yes means yes do it. But if a package it depends on it will fail saying it is depend on, -f == force means that delete it anyway.

Q: Where is pkg info -R, the old pkg_info had -R?

New flags are: pkg info -d for depends on, and pkg info -r for reverse dependencies.

Q: Can pkgng replace a package with an another version, e.g. pkg upgrade pkg-1.0 pkg-2.0?

Currently not, but it is in the todo list.

Q: How pkgng deals with dependencies? If pkgA-1.0 depends on pkgB-1.0 and pkgB-1.0 is updated to pkgB-2.0, will pkgA notice the change?

Yes, pkgA will automatically notice the change.

Q: The repository format of pkgng is different from the old one. Will pkgng adapt the old format too?

The documented (README) way to create a new repository creates all packages in one directory.

This is different from earlier repository format, which creates it in separate directories.

Pkgng doesn not depend on a hierarchy, it recursively finds the packages from the provided directory entry.

Q: Does pkg repo include symlinked packages?

The default hierarchy has lots of symlinks which should just be ignored and thus pkgng doesn not read symlinks.

Q: How do I know if I have packages with the same origin?

Here is how to do that:

sh -c 'find . -name "*.txz" -exec pkg query -f {} %o \;' | sort | uniq -d

Q: How to start working with multi-repos in pkgng?

Please refer to the README, which explains how to enable and get started with multi-repos in pkgng.

Q: Why pkg create is slow?

The number one reason is the XZ compression, which is slow.

Q: Does pkgng work with portaudit?

No, pkgng uses internal pkg audit command.

Q: When will pkgng be the default package manager of FreeBSD?

Possibly in version 9.1.

How can I use pkgng with portmaster?

First make sure you have the latest portmaster patch from the Github repo.

The latest patch can be found here:

• ports/portmaster.patch

Now patch portmaster:

# cd /usr/local/sbin && patch < /path/to/pkgng/ports/portmaster.patch

Enable pkgng in portmaster:

# echo "use_pkgng=yes" >> /usr/local/etc/portmaster.rc

That was it.