Switching from Linux to DFBSD (pkgsrc/packages)

[David Chanters <david.chanters@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I've a couple of questions about DF, specifically managing
packages/pkgsrc and would welcome any input.  Hopefully I've
understood this correctly, if not, do correct me.  :)  I haven't
switched from Linux yet, all of this is currently running in my VM.
But so far, it's great.

So, in no particular order:

1.  What's the relationship between pkgin and pkgsrc?  I find pkgin
*really* useful so far for a lot of things like OpenOffice, Firefox,
etc., which would have otherwise crippled my machine trying to compile
them.  That said, I also have some applications compiled from pkgsrc.
Is it OK/acceptable to mix these two methods?

2.  Is there an equivalent of "pkgin" for managing compiled programs
from pkgsrc?  I can surely see a likely use case of someone compiled a
load of applications from pkgsrc, and wanting to peridocially
recompile them if there's been a version increase in the pkgsrc
repository upstream.

3.  Also, is there any merit to having a tool which would check either
pkgin or pkgsrc and suggest using a binary or compiled-from-source
based on if the binary file present matches the one to compile from
pkgsrc?  I appreciate compilation might necessitate a reason other
than "because I can", but it might be a nice convenience.  Does such a
tool exist?

4.  I note that most of the ownership under "/usr/{src,pkgsrc}" is
owned by group "wheel".  That's fine, since my non-root user account
is in this group; I also like to compile things as non-root and then
"sudo bmake install".  Is this a recommended way of working?  Do I
just "chmod -R g+w /usr", or is there some other preferred way?

Thanks a lot for any advice you can give.  I would just like to say
that I've been really impressed with the documentation on the DF wiki
-- it's been really helpful so far!  But I can imagine some of the
above is on the wiki, in which case, do point me at it!  :)

David