Recreational System Administration
Posted by Jim at March 24th, 2005
Every so often I meddle with my FreeBSD box. Usually I just use the FreeBSD box, but every so often I decide to add some programs, remove programs or upgrade things.
Sometimes this is a pleasant process, but sometimes it is a stepping stone to pain. Like tonight for example, I upgraded a library (never a good idea) only to find that it’s connected to Gnome and Xfree86 and thus (as you might guess) the FreeBSD box is now command line only.
I’m currently torn between total reinstallation or possibly trying to put the right version of the right library back onto the box. I suspect that reinstallation might be easier. Trouble is, I need to use cvs for my master’s project and I set up cvs on the FreeBSD box.
CVS (and all non-gui dependant programs) work just fine of course. Thus I’m tempted to leave the whole box alone until I’m finished with my masters. That or set up CVS on the Mac.
Too late to figure this one out now. I’m going to bed.
where did you install the library from? Ports tree?
Ed Heil
Here’s what I did in some detail:
In an effort to install Dia (a tool for diagramming program structure), I upgraded a gnome related library. I installed it from ports. It in turn had a dependancy on a package called “atk” but wouldn’t for some reason automatically recompile atk. The error message suggested deinstalling and reinstalling from ports. I did that. I now suspect that atk is a toolkit for X windows and that the version of X I’m using requires an older version of atk than is currently available.
This is what I get for trying to screw around with ports just before going to bed.
Jim Zoetewey