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System Configuration—Software Package ManagementPortmasterThe portmaster(8) utility (available in ports-mgmt/portmaster in ports tree) hasbeen created to address some deficiencies in the portupgrade. The benefits arelisted here:• portmaster does not depend on the external languages, unlike portupgradethat heavily depends on Ruby and Perl languages. It relies only on thesystem shell. In fact portmaster is a huge shell script.• Unlike portupgrade, portmaster does not rely on external databases. Rather,it relies on the system's package database that is available in /var/db/pkg.• portmaster downloads distfiles in the background, while updatingpackages in the foreground, which saves a lot of time.# portmaster vlc===>>> Gathering distinfo list for installed ports===>>> Update vlc-0.8.5_12? [n] y===>>> Port to upgrade: vlc-0.8.5_12===>>> Port directory: /usr/ports/multimedia/vlc===>>> Launching 'make checksum' for multimedia/vlc in background===>>> Gathering dependency list for multimedia/vlc from ports===>>> Starting recursive 'make config' check[…]SummaryIn this chapter you have learnt how to install and update software packages usingsystems native tools, and third-party tools such as the portupgrade and portmaster.The system administrator can choose to use any of the package management tools. Ifyou are already happy with portupgrade, you won't need to switch to portmasteror any other management tool, and vice versa. Basically all of the packagemanagement tools are doing the same job but using different methods.Before you use any set of tools to manage your software packages, just make surethat you have already been through the available documentation and man pages. Itgives you more insight on how your favorite utility is working, and how it can makeyour life easier.[ 60 ]