On 20-Aug-2007, at 14:55, Michael G Schwern wrote:
dpkg started back in 1993. FreeBSD "port make macros" started in
1994. I
doubt dpkg is a clone of ports.
Debian didn't include dependency handling at all, ports was the first
package system to do that and all the rest added it on later in a
layer above the actual packaging system. Without that it won't do
anything more than tell you you need to install something... it won't
tell you where to get it and in many cases it won't even tell you the
name of the package it wants.
With ports you get the name of every package that's available in the
system, the names of ALL the packages each depends on, and you don't
even need access to the repository... it will go out to the original
site on the net where the original software was distributed from if
you can't get to a FreeBSD mirror... the ports tree on your computer
has everything it needs to go from the original third-party distro to
the installed package configured for FreeBSD.
If you can't get that information out of DarwinPorts, then it's not a
faithful reimplementation of the FreeBSD port system.
But if you'd prefer a debian-based approach, there's always fink.
Personally, I think all package management systems are hateful, it's
just that sometimes they're the least hateful option.
