Script: bsdinstall.sh about opn-repo

[mimugmail]

Looks good, but using vanilla pkg is highly unstable as pkg version sometimes differs and will break your system

[mihakralj]

Aren't these packages exactly the same as building them from ports? Risk is exactly the same, the difference is that building from ports demands the whole build chain of tools to be installed as well (go, rust or whatever)

If someone wants a tool from FreeBSD to run on OPNsense, what is worse: direct install of binary with pkg add or local compile from ports?

[mimugmail]

The problem is when opnsense builds against 1.19 and freebsd is build against 1.20 it will break. Already seen with 1.17 and 1.18 last year with 22.1

[mihakralj]

...and the same problem would happen with bsd ports? Or not?
The advantage of pkg add in this case is that it will never follow the version upgrades as it is not attached to BSD repo. One pull of binary and that's it. If it passes the first install on opnsense and works, pkg add no longer depends on version upgrades of freebsd repo.

This is - of course - also a curse, as it will never auto-upgrade (just like ports) and it is on admin to keep its track.

[mihakralj]

The question is: is this script worth adding among the tinkering tools to the community repo?
Here are couple of reasons (modern unix tools) why I think it matters to help OPNsense users to install direct freebsd tools that OPNsense is missing (the script above can generate direct pkg add link to all of them):

• doggo - command-line DNS analysis client (does DOT and DOH as well)
• drill - another dig alternative
• gping - a CLI for ping that draws graphs, measures jitter and oh-my
• bottom - a modern insightful replacement for top (after install, the command is btm)
• duf - a modern alternative to df
• ngrep - command line network packet analyzer
• hyperfine - statistical benchmarking of any task across multiple runs
• lazygit - using git without having PhD in git

Installing any/all of these tools without direct link to freebsd binaries is a nightmare. Not having these tools on opnsense is even greater nightmare. :-)