Note: The ports system makes it easy for you to compile applications for your OpenBSD system. For pre-compiled versions of several popular applications see README.packages. The ports/ subdirectory is a checkout of the OpenBSD ports tree. Read http://www.openbsd.org/ports.html if you know nothing about ports at this point. This text is not a manual of how to use ports. Rather, it is a set of notes meant to kickstart the user on the OpenBSD ports system. [ The wise user had better stay away from the ports system entirely and use pre-compiled packages from the CD-Rom or the ftp site. ] Certainly, the OpenBSD ports system is not complete. There are always interesting new applications being developed that have not yet been ported. We believe the ports that are provided here are stable, but realize that ports will continue to grow a great deal in the future. There are two components to the ports system. The first component is the Makefile, patches, and informational files used to automate the generation of third-party software. This is found under the ports/ directory. The second component are the third-party distribution files. These files, typically compressed tar files, are found in the distfiles/ directory. The ports/ hierarchy must be copied from the CD-ROM to your hard disk. This is necessary as the build processs uses the ports directory for working files. Caution: while the ports directory is rather small, some ports require a lot of disk space to build the application. To copy out the contents of the ports tree to /usr/ports (where it is normally located) you would mount the CD-ROM with ports on it on /cdrom and issue a command like: # cp -pR /cdrom/ports/* /usr/ports/ The ports/ directory represents a CVS (see the manpage for cvs(1) if you aren't familiar with CVS) checkout of our ports. If you choose to follow current on src, you must also track current on ports: make the ports/ tree available on a read-write medium and update the tree with a command like: # cd [portsdir]/; cvs -d anoncvsserver.openbsd.org:/cvs update -PAd [Of course, you must replace the local directory and server name here with the location of your ports collection and a nerby anoncvs server.] Again, it's important to see the webpage for specific instructions. Finally, help is never far. If you're interested in seeing a port added, would like to help out, or just would like to know more, the mailing list ports@openbsd.org is a good place to know.