I've seen some confusion on what pkgng is and what the current status of it is, so I decided to writeup a small explanation.
PKGNG is a replacement for pkg_add/pkg_install. Before pkgng came along, ports already used pkg_install and binary packages were installed with pkg_add -r. These old tools did not properly handle upgrades or dependencies very well. PKGNG is a replacement for pkg_add/pkg_install, but much smarter. It is similar to apt-get, yum, etc. All pkgng packages are built from ports at some point, so it is still limited by limitations of ports. PkgPrimer [1] provides some comparison of the old commands to the new commands. PKGNG is not necessarily a replacement for ports. You can continue to use ports just like before (with portmaster / portupgrade / manual), or you can opt to use a binary package repository. Ports allow you to select which OPTIONS are used, while binary packages generally do not. Your local Ports checkout may have different versions of the remote repository you choose to use. As such, if you try to use both binary packages and ports, you may run into surprises. The plan is to provide a pkg.freebsd.org repository that is updated frequently, uses SRV mirrors, and has signed packages. This part of the plan is stalled. More information on the roadmap for pkgng is on the PKGNG Charter wiki page [2] The nature of mirrors means that http://pkg.freebsd.org will not have a site on it as it is an SRV mirror, not an FTP or HTTP server. If it had packages, you would not be able to browse them. You should use 'pkg search' instead. You can see which mirrors are available by running: dig SRV _http._tcp.pkg.freebsd.org However, due to the recent security incident [3], the pkg.freebsd.org repository was cleared and will be rebuilt in the future [4]. As such, no packages except for 'ports-mgmt/pkg' are currently available. However, you can build your own packages and run your own repository using poudriere (ports-mgmt/poudriere) or tinderbox (ports-mgmt/tinderbox-devel); or just continue using ports. [1] http://wiki.freebsd.org/PkgPrimer [2] http://wiki.freebsd.org/pkgng/CharterAndRoadMap [3] http://www.freebsd.org/news/2012-compromise.html [4] http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-ports/2012-November/079711.html More information, blog posts, and resources can be found on the PKGNG wiki page: http://wiki.freebsd.org/pkgng Hope this helps, Bryan Drewery
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