On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 05:49:48AM -0700, KAYVEN RIESE wrote: > > My professor told me about instructions being in /usr/src/Makefile > for rebuilding my world. I feel better about following them because > they are close to the command line to me and can't be out of date, right?
No. Any comments or documentation *can* be "out of date" or otherwise misleading or incorrect. > I am looking at this list of makes: Err.. that would be "make targets," yeah? > # check-old - List obsolete directories/files/libraries. > # check-old-dirs - List obsolete directories. > # check-old-files - List obsolete files. > # check-old-libs - List obsolete libraries. > # delete-old - Delete obsolete directories/files/libraries. > # delete-old-dirs - Delete obsolete directories. > # delete-old-files - Delete obsolete files. > # delete-old-libs - Delete obsolete libraries. > # > > > I am wondering if I should try these out, or will it just be > taken care of with the "cannonical" methods. I expect that depends a great deal on what your objectives are. If you are merely trying to keep a system up-to-date, you are (IMO) better off reading, then paying attention to changes in, /usr/src/UPDATING. If, on the other hand, you are curious about just what make(1) will do when told to make a given target, by all means experiment to your heart's content (on your own system(s)). But I encourage you to consider the utility of the "-n" flag to make(1). Well, that, as well as the value of good backup & restore procedures. > I seem to have lots > of big problems with my configuration.. I don't know. Things > work, but dmesg has errors, and many ports fail and their makes, > even if they succeed have errors and warnings. > > If I "delete-old-.." will I be messing things up? Hard to say without more information about your current configuration than is likely to fit in a message to the mailing list. If the complaints are sufficiently severe (note that the mere quantity of them isn't a relaible measure of this), you may be better off recording salient configuration information (e.g., what ports you tried to install), make a good backup (assuming there's data worth recovering), wiping the system clean, and starting over. It is certainly possible to mess a system up enough that recovery is problematic, at best. Peace, david -- David H. Wolfskill [EMAIL PROTECTED] I submit that "conspiracy" would be an appropriate collective noun for cats. See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key.
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