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Full Discussion: How do You manage different program versions?
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers How do You manage different program versions? Post 302933618 by bakunin on Saturday 31st of January 2015 04:51:12 PM
Old 01-31-2015
I am not a specialist for FreeBSD, so my advice will be generic. It may well be that FreeBSD has some special provisions for some of the things mentioned, but what i am going to suggest should work on every UNIX- and UNIX-like system.

One possibility is to create different directories for different versions,then create a link for the default version: instead of installing a software to, say, /opt/software you install version 1 to /opt/software-v1, version 2 to /opt/software-v2, then create a link /opt/software -> /opt/sofware-v2, which will make version 2 accessible through /opt/software (which is probably the default path for it) as well. Instead of reinstalling over and over again you just recreate the link if the necessity arises.

You might even create the link prior to installation of the software so that you can use normal installation routines (which most times uses a fixed path) and still have different directories for the different versions.

Another option is to control different software versions through the envrionment: binaries are searched for in the order in which the directories appear in the PATH.

For example: you have a binary "mybinary" installed in /opt/software-v1/bin and in another version in /opt/software-v2/bin. If your path looks like:

Code:
PATH="$PATH:/opt/software/v1/bin

Then every time you enter "mybinary" without an explicit path version 1 would get executed, Would it be:

Code:
PATH="$PATH:/opt/software/v2/bin

instead, version 2 would be executed by default.

It is, btw., the same with other environment variables which accept a list of directories, like the ksh-specific "FPATH" for instance.

Finally, this is a variation on this method, you can create different users, one with an environment pointing to one version, the other pointing to the other.

I hope this helps.

bakunin
Last edited by Don Cragun; 01-31-2015 at 07:07 PM.. Reason: Fix a couple of ICODE tags.
 

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LEARN ABOUT OSX

mkepmlist

mkepmlist(1)						      Easy Software Products						      mkepmlist(1)

NAME

       mkepmlist - make an epm list file from a directory.

SYNOPSIS

       mkepmlist [ -g group ] [ -u user ] [ --prefix directory ] directory [ ...  directory ]

DESCRIPTION

       mkepmlist recursively generates file list entries for files, links, and directories. The file list is send to the standard output.

       The -g option overrides the group ownership of the files in the specified directories with the specified group name.

       The -u option overrides the user ownership of the files in the specified directories with the specified user name.

       The  --prefix  option adds the specified directory to the destination path. For example, if you installed files to "/opt/foo" and wanted to
       build a distribution that installed the files in "/usr/local", the following command would generate  a  file  list  that  is  installed	in
       "/usr/local":
	    mkepmlist --prefix=/usr/local /opt/foo >foo.list

SEE ALSO

       epm(1) - create software packages
       epminstall(1) - add a directory, file, or symlink to a list file
       epm.list(5) - epm list file format

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright 1999-2007 by Easy Software Products, All Rights Reserved.

       This  program  is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
       the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version.

       This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY	WARRANTY;  without  even  the  implied	warranty  of  MER-
       CHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more details.

3 April 2006							ESP Package Manager						      mkepmlist(1)
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