How do I get pkg_add to look in the correct directory on the remote ftp repository when installing vim?

Question

I have a brand new clean installation of FreeBSD 9.1 on Virtualbox.

Running pkg_add -r -v vim, the terminal runs an ftp script to: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/pub/i386/packages-9.1-release/Latest/vim.tbz and gets No such file or directory

That makes sense, considering that if you navigate to ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/ there is no 9.1 releases folder.

Other answers online seem to point you to your PACKAGEROOT environment variable, but those generally only point to the server, and I'm not having trouble accessing the server.

I've also tried to build Vim from the source that came with the installation in /usr/ports/editors/ but after two hours of compiling, it ended up failing.

Answer 1

The lack of packages for 9.1 is due to a security incident on the freebsd network late 2012. The result being a delay in the 9.1 release and only a minimal subset of packages being built for the dvd. Although I've not seen any recent updates I'm assuming their build system is still impacted.

The only sure way to be current at the moment is to build from ports. They are generally pretty solid. Try again and check what failed to compile. It was probably something other than vim being built if it took two hours and you likely won't build everything again.

If still stuck you could try this, but ymmv:

setenv PACKAGESITE "ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-9-current/"

Otherwise you could go down to 8.3.

Also FreeBSD is also moving to pkgng and the pkg command but don't try this yet as there are no packages being built here either, I believe this has stalled for the same reason.

Answer 2

You can also create your own repository using tinderbox. More info here. It generally works pretty well, and doesn't take too long, but isn't quick either, as you have to wait for the compiles, of course.

Also, if you want to do that using the new pkg format, there are several guides. Or, if you don't want to wait for compiles and you're willing to trust strangers to create packages, there is a public repository. See here for more detail.