OpenBSD Journal

OpenBSD Ports Watcher

Contributed by mbalmer on from the we-need-ports dept.

Not all people are happy with new ports being announced on undeadly.org in the form we did lately; there will be less such announcements. Alex Holst, a@mongers.org, however, steps in and offers a nice service for those interested in new ports:

pwatcher analyses changes to the OpenBSD ports tree and offers a HTML summary output, allowing for a quick overview of new and dropped ports.

pwatcher answers questions like "which ports have just been added to -current?" or "which ports didn't exist in the previous release?"

If our httpd logs show that people actually start using pwatcher, we'll continue working on the todo list, namely making each port link to a summary page and maybe even an RSS feed of new ports in -current.

Visit the ports watcher at pwatcher.mongers.org

(Comments are closed)


Comments
  1. By David Steinberg (66.65.22.47) dave@redterror.net on http://www.geekisp.com/

    I'd love an RSS feed. :)

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (213.118.74.206) on

      > I'd love an RSS feed. :)

      Read the TODO list on that site. It says they're planning to provide RSS feeds in the future.

    2. By Alex Holst (80.160.149.62) a@mongers.org on

      > I'd love an RSS feed. :)

      Done.

  2. By Eager Beaver (71.222.29.227) on

    That's a nifty tool.

    But I would like to say that the port posts actually were pretty useful to a section of your audience: folks who don't already know what everything does.

    See, I personally am not familiar with what's out there. I use OpenBSD in some basic roles, and it's the only *nix I use. But I'm relativey new to the entire *nix world... I don't really know what's out there. Of the posts curently on the Undeadly home page, most told me something new or potentially useful. (And the rest were at least mildly interesting.) Before, I didn't know most of these tools existed at all. Now I do, and I can evaluate if they're right for me.

    Having a ports watcher report that tells me security/prelude was updated is not nearly as useful as a short article telling me that Prelude is a tool for integrating various IDS systems. I didn't know that, so a report saying security/prelude/* was ported would have been just noise.

    So on behalf of the people new to OpenBSD, and the ignorant-but-eager-to-learn more generally, I say please keep the ports articles coming. (Indeed, please keep *all* submitted articles coming... undeadly has yet to be burdened with too many articles.) A few articles about good tools from the more experienced folks will go a long way towards helping us newbies out.

    Thanks.

    Comments
    1. Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward (68.104.220.48) on

        > You might be interested in the Freshmeat newsletter.

        Right, because hearing about every lame-ass poorly written application or script some Linux user puts out is exactly the same as hearing about applications ported specifically into packages for your OS of choice.

        Comments
        1. By Anonymous Coward (70.27.15.123) on

          > > You might be interested in the Freshmeat newsletter.
          >
          > Right, because hearing about every lame-ass poorly written application or script some Linux user puts out is exactly the same as hearing about applications ported specifically into packages for your OS of choice.

          No, its more useful actually. You can already see what openbsd ports there are if you want to. If you just want to find out about unix software, freshmeat is much better. You can even find about software without an openbsd port, that may even be useful. You might even want to port some of it.

          Comments
          1. By Eager Beaver (71.222.29.227) on

            > No, its more useful actually. You can already see what openbsd ports there are if you want
            > to. If you just want to find out about unix software, freshmeat is much better. You can even
            > find about software without an openbsd port, that may even be useful. You might even want
            > to port some of it.

            I can't pretend to have anything vaguely approaching the expertise needed to accomplish a port. Newbie, ya know. (I also can't pretend that my life is likely ever to allow me to become a developer... I have other fish to fry.)

            Freshmeat may describe packages, but it generally doesn't present the opinion of the OpenBSD community on the worth of those packages. I care about that opinion every bit as much as I care about discovering the port in the first place.

            The ports posts here, and the comments on them, have a unique value. Don't sell 'em short.

            Comments
            1. By Anonymous Coward (66.39.191.42) on


              >
              > Freshmeat may describe packages, but it generally doesn't present the opinion of the OpenBSD community on the worth of those packages.

              Being in the OpenBSD ports tree doesn't mean that anyone except the person who made the port has any opinion AT ALL about the package. It simply means the someone took the time to create a port. That's it.

              Comments
              1. By Eager Beaver (71.222.29.227) on

                > Being in the OpenBSD ports tree doesn't mean that anyone except the person who made the
                > port has any opinion AT ALL about the package. It simply means the someone took the time
                > to create a port. That's it.

                Right, I get that. That's why I want to hear what Undeadly readers have to say about 'em.

        2. By Anonymous Coward (66.92.95.162) on

          > > You might be interested in the Freshmeat newsletter.
          >
          > Right, because hearing about every lame-ass poorly written application or script some Linux user puts out is exactly the same as hearing about applications ported specifically into packages for your OS of choice.

          Such hostility toward Linux on undeadly. Is this the way all of the OpenBSD community is? (Hopefully the rest of the community also reads undeadly, but normally doesn't post, and will post a reply here.)

          I'm a longtime linux user, somewhat intersted in moving over to bsd, but I have to say that the open hosility toward linux users on undeadly really makes me think that I should jump in with one of the other bsd flavors.

          Comments
          1. By Anonymous Coward (12.109.229.8) on

            > > > You might be interested in the Freshmeat newsletter.
            > >
            > > Right, because hearing about every lame-ass poorly written application or script some Linux user puts out is exactly the same as hearing about applications ported specifically into packages for your OS of choice.
            >
            > Such hostility toward Linux on undeadly. Is this the way all of the OpenBSD community is? (Hopefully the rest of the community also reads undeadly, but normally doesn't post, and will post a reply here.)
            >
            > I'm a longtime linux user, somewhat intersted in moving over to bsd, but I have to say that the open hosility toward linux users on undeadly really makes me think that I should jump in with one of the other bsd flavors.

            You have obviously missed all the linux kiddies coming over here after an article on undeadly has been slashdotted, and see these trolls at work.
            It's not pretty.

            This is the root cause (on undeadly at least) of that hostility.




    2. By Anonymous Coward (69.70.207.240) on

      > That's a nifty tool.
      >
      > But I would like to say that the port posts actually were pretty useful to a section of your audience: folks who don't already know what everything does.
      >
      > See, I personally am not familiar with what's out there. I use OpenBSD in some basic roles, and it's the only *nix I use. But I'm relativey new to the entire *nix world... I don't really know what's out there. Of the posts curently on the Undeadly home page, most told me something new or potentially useful. (And the rest were at least mildly interesting.) Before, I didn't know most of these tools existed at all. Now I do, and I can evaluate if they're right for me.
      >
      > Having a ports watcher report that tells me security/prelude was updated is not nearly as useful as a short article telling me that Prelude is a tool for integrating various IDS systems. I didn't know that, so a report saying security/prelude/* was ported would have been just noise.
      >
      > So on behalf of the people new to OpenBSD, and the ignorant-but-eager-to-learn more generally, I say please keep the ports articles coming. (Indeed, please keep *all* submitted articles coming... undeadly has yet to be burdened with too many articles.) A few articles about good tools from the more experienced folks will go a long way towards helping us newbies out.
      >
      > Thanks.

      Very nicely said!

  3. By Chris Snell (166.70.206.242) on http://chrissnell.com

    I like the port anouncements here. Stories about ports beats no stories at all!

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (69.70.207.240) on

      > I like the port anouncements here. Stories about ports beats no stories at all!

      I totally agree with you too.

      Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward (205.240.34.148) on

        > > I like the port anouncements here. Stories about ports beats no stories at all!
        >
        > I totally agree with you too.

        Some people would rather Undeadly be silent. They ruin it for the rest of us.

        Maybe a cookie could be implemented to save viewing preferences and people not wanting to see patch or port info can opt out and we can get some content going on here again.

        Comments
        1. By pete gilman (24.128.56.154) on


          > Maybe a cookie could be implemented to save viewing preferences and people not wanting to see patch or port info can opt out and we can get some content going on here again.

          personally, i'd rather have daniel hacking pf than implementing mickey-mouse features for undeadly. 8-)

          Comments
          1. By Anonymous Coward (70.27.15.123) on

            >
            > > Maybe a cookie could be implemented to save viewing preferences and people not wanting to see patch or port info can opt out and we can get some content going on here again.
            >
            > personally, i'd rather have daniel hacking pf than implementing mickey-mouse features for undeadly. 8-)
            >

            Anyone can feel free to impliment it and send in a patch. Its open source remember?

        2. By Anonymous Coward (70.27.15.123) on

          > > > I like the port anouncements here. Stories about ports beats no stories at all!
          > >
          > > I totally agree with you too.
          >
          > Some people would rather Undeadly be silent. They ruin it for the rest of us.

          No, we would rather undeadly be about openbsd like it used to.

          Comments
          1. By Anonymous Coward (69.70.207.240) on

            > > > > I like the port anouncements here. Stories about ports beats no stories at all!
            > > >
            > > > I totally agree with you too.
            > >
            > > Some people would rather Undeadly be silent. They ruin it for the rest of us.
            >
            > No, we would rather undeadly be about openbsd like it used to.

            I would like it to stay the way it is and not try to pussy-foot around everyone. There will always be people who are unhappy about something, we can't please them all...

            Hope to see more good content again soon or in a sub-section of undeadly.org with good mailing list threads too.

          2. By Anonymous Coward (68.104.1.58) on

            > > > > I like the port anouncements here. Stories about ports beats no stories at all!
            > > >
            > > > I totally agree with you too.
            > >
            > > Some people would rather Undeadly be silent. They ruin it for the rest of us.
            >
            > No, we would rather undeadly be about openbsd like it used to.

            yes, because the ports repository is completely unrelated to OpenBSD.

            so when an emulators/wine or productivity/openoffice is committed, should
            undeadly mention it?

  4. By Joachim Schipper (82.134.241.64) on

    This is a good compromise, I believe. Those of us who also watch ports@ and port-changes@, like myself, do not have to scroll by those posts; those of us who don't care, needn't read them either; and those of us who like a nice cozy web-interface get it.

    It should probably be linked under 'OpenBSD resources' on the right of the main page, and probably in some other places, too, or it will be forgotten soon. (Then again, no diff is attached, so who am I ;-) )

    Joachim

  5. By Anonymous Coward (69.243.48.238) on

    All of these anti-ports posting whiners are making undeadly unfun.

  6. By Anonymous Coward (66.39.191.42) on

    We do have this thing called the "ports" mailing list.... I think it has something to do with that damn "commit" function in that cvs program everyone keeps talking about. I wonder if "commit" doesn't have something to do with updated ports. Golly gee.

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (216.62.11.163) on

      > We do have this thing called the "ports" mailing list.... I think it has something to do with that damn "commit" function in that cvs program everyone keeps talking about. I wonder if "commit" doesn't have something to do with updated ports. Golly gee.

      Well, that's a waste of time... everyone should just track -current for both /usr/src and/usr/ports. Simpy run "sudo /usr/ports/infrastructure/build/out-of-date" after you've updated both trees, got your new kernel installed, rebooted and finished with make build. Reading CVS commit logs is for n00bs.

      That was, of course, a joke.

      I don't mind finding out about interesting new ports on undeadly. I wouldn't want to read about how graphics/netpbm has been updated (.../out-of-date will tell me that). I don't spend much time browsing for new ports. I wrongly think I know what is out there and having the cool new stuff spoon fed to me helps me see past all these years of doing things one way. I tend to forget that new tools come along. If they are good, we should look into them.

      We don't say it often enough: thanks to all the port makers and to the team who worked up the new pkg_ tools. Y'all do a great job.

  7. By Anonymous Coward (63.237.125.164) on

    The value of undeadly is that it presents useable information which is then followed up with insightful commentary.

    Most articles are about how core features are implemented, or how to accomplish a specific task.

    Please keep ports announcements on undeadly, but require they be qualified by an article showing how to use the port to accomplish a specific task.

    Thanks.

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Copyright © - Daniel Hartmeier. All rights reserved. Articles and comments are copyright their respective authors, submission implies license to publish on this web site. Contents of the archive prior to as well as images and HTML templates were copied from the fabulous original deadly.org with Jose's and Jim's kind permission. This journal runs as CGI with httpd(8) on OpenBSD, the source code is BSD licensed. undeadly \Un*dead"ly\, a. Not subject to death; immortal. [Obs.]