On Mon, Jan 24, 2005 at 11:15:12PM -0600, Donald J. O'Neill wrote: > > > And if you want to install packages using the ports tree. > > > > Eh? > > > > > depend on installing packages only, ok. Of course, you have to wait > > > for them to be built. > > > > > > I just ran pkg_info -R perl-5.8.5, too many to count by hand. > > > > Well, yeah, but that's because you installed perl 5.8.5 or something > > that depends on it. If you use 4.x most such ports will be happy > > with the base system version of perl, and if you don't use 4.x then > > ports that don't require perl won't install it. > > > > Yes, and that's my point Kris. Of the 537 ports that are installed on my > system, 318 of them require (have a dependency) perl-5.8.5 to run. What > about others that require it to build. So, if Gert, who is running > FSBD5.3 on an amd64 system and has been building ports and using > portupgrade, removes perl-5.8.5 (does a forced removal) because he > can't see that it's used all over the place and thinks of it as a > security issue because of earlier perl versions. He's going to have a > big problem on his hands the first time he tries to use portupgrade and > finds a lot of decencies missing in his package database, and running > pkgdb -F is going to fix them.
The original question was whether perl is a required dependency to use the ports collection at all (no it isn't), not whether it is commonly used by applications in the ports collection. Thus, unless he is using a port that requires perl (the dependency will be registered, of course), it can be removed. Kris
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