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System Configuration—Software Package ManagementPorts and PackagesAlmost every modern *nix distribution supports its own definition for softwarepackaging. However, the goal of all distributions is to simplify the process ofsoftware installation for that specific platform.Different platforms are bundled with various versions of the common libraries andbuild tools. Each of those libraries and build tools uses its own directory hierarchyand philosophy of the software package management. FreeBSD also has its ownrules and philosophy. For example, all user software should be installed relative tothe /usr/local directory.Using the FreeBSD's built-in tools, the system administrator doesn't have to worryabout the details. The software is built using the right libraries, and installed at theproper location along with the documentation and configuration files. You can alsoremove the software that is not needed, or even upgrade it without harming theother installed applications.The Legacy MethodThere is a common method to install an application from the source code in Unix-likeoperation systems—fetching tarball, extracting, running configure, running make tocompile the program, and finally installing it. An example of such a scenario is givenas follows:# tar zxvf tcpreplay-3.0.0.tar.gzx tcpreplay-3.0.0/x tcpreplay-3.0.0/aclocal.m4x tcpreplay-3.0.0/autogen.shx tcpreplay-3.0.0/config/[…]# cd tcpreplay-3.0.0# ./configurechecking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions ofMakefiles... nochecking if malloc debugging is wanted... nochecking build system type... i386-unknown-freebsd7.0[…][ 48 ]