! OpenBSD is a fairly complete system of its own, but still there is a lot of
! software that one might want see added. However there is the problem on where
! to draw the line on what to include and not, as well as licensing and export
! restrictions problems. Some things just can't be shipped with the system.
! We wanted to find a way for users to easily get software we don't provide
! and started to look around. We didn't have to look far as a sibling project,
! FreeBSD, had an excellent mechanism for
! exactly this purpose called
! "The ports collection". After
! thinking about it for a while we decided to try to use their collection as is,
! feeding back necessary patches to make the ports work on OpenBSD as well
! to the FreeBSD maintainers.
!
!
Short description and setup
!
! The ports idea is to have, for each piece of software, a Makefile that
! describes where to fetch it, how to do the fetch, what it is depending upon
! (if anything), how to alter the sources (if needed) and how to configure,
! build and install it. Furthermore some patches will have to be kept in the
! "port" as well as some administration files for the package registry utilities.
! Normally this information is kept in an hierarchy under /usr/ports (however,
! this is configurable). I recommend reading the
! ports chapter in the
! FreeBSD handbook to get
! information on how to setup this hierarchy. A current gzipped tar-archive
! of the FreeBSD ports can be found
! here
! .
!
!
Example
!
! Let's say you managed to get a ports tree sitting under /usr/ports, then you
! should be able to something like this:
!
! cd /usr/ports/archivers/unzip
make
su
make install
exit
!
! Easy, huh?
!
!
Problems and contacts
!
! As the ports collection really is a FreeBSD thing, there are ports that do not
! work in OpenBSD for various reasons. But this is going to change in the near future.
! Our ports coordinator has set up a
! page with the current status
! - what is done, what is being worked on right now, on what architecture, etc.
! If you have trouble with ports contact either
! Ejovi Nuwere (preferably),
! Niklas Hallqvist or
! Warner Losh and give us either patches
! on how to fix things or, if you cannot do this, point us at the problematic
! port and tell us what fails and we shall try to fix it.
!
! OpenBSD is a fairly complete system of its own, but still there is a lot
! of software that one might want see added. However there is the problem
! on where to draw the line on what to include and not, as well as licensing
! and export restrictions problems. Some things just can't be shipped with
! the system. We wanted to find a way for users to easily get software we
! don't provide and started to look around. We didn't have to look far as
! a sibling project, FreeBSD, had an
! excellent mechanism for exactly this purpose called "The
! ports collection". After thinking about it for a while we decided to
! try to use their collection as is, but do incompatibility problems between
! FreeBSD and OpenBSD we decided to branch out and create our very own OpenBSD
! Ports Project using FreeBSD's as a starting point.
!
!
! Short description and setup
! The ports idea is to have, for each piece of software, a Makefile that
! describes where to fetch it, how to do the fetch, what it is depending
! upon (if anything), how to alter the sources (if needed) and how to configure,
! build and install it. Furthermore some patches will have to be kept in
! the "port" as well as some administration files for the package registry
! utilities. Normally this information is kept in an hierarchy under /usr/ports
! (however, this is configurable). I recommend reading the ports
! chapter in the FreeBSD handbook
! to get information on how to setup this hierarchy until OpenBSD can complete
! its on ports.helpfile
!
! Example
! Let's say you managed to get a ports tree sitting under /usr/ports, then
! you should be able to something like this:
!
cd /usr/ports/archivers/unzip
make
su
make install
exit
!
! Easy, huh?
!
! Problems and contacts
! Our ports coordinator is currently
! working on a ports statues page - what is done, what is being worked on
! right now, on what architecture, etc. If you have trouble with ports contact
! either Ejovi Nuwere (preferably),
! Gene Skonicki or Todd Tyrone Fries and give us either patches on
! how to fix things or, if you cannot
! do this, point us at the problematic port and tell us what fails and we
! shall try to fix it.
!
!
! www@openbsd.org
! $OpenBSD: ports.html,v 1.8 1997/11/18 08:12:33 deraadt
! Exp $
!
![[OpenBSD]](images/smalltitle.gif)
! ![[OpenBSD]](http://www.openbsd.org/images/smalltitle.gif)
! 
! www@openbsd.org
!