Further customization of FreeBSD ports

 In some ports, there are configure arguments 

and/ or CPU ISA architecture specifics. Today,

we will learn to adapt the port for both.

Look at the port and download with git, wget, 

or another command line utility.

Search for the configure file. Even if you do

not like this next suggestion, use it to read

the entire configure file.  cat $CONFIGURE_FILE

| more. Note that some build systems will 

require you to create a document beforehand. 

Search for the following: architecture 

dependent flags. Disable these when necessary 

in the ports Makefile. If your chosen

architecture is not in the file, then add it

in the configure file and add for architecture 

$SUCH_AND_SUCH to the port Makefile.

Whatever arguments that you want in the

configure file that are not arguments in the

port Makefile, add those to the already 

existing arguments. SIMD arguments are

CPU ISA specific,  adapt to use whatever is

on the CPU of your chosen or available 

architecture. 

Do not patch.  Rewrite and save. Let the

upstream maintainers know what you did.

If the build fails, rebuild and tee the output

to a text file. Use the cat $FILENAME |more

so you can see where the error is. If the

operating system team requires certain 

code standards, then follow them. They

have a very good reason for doing such.

It is better to build on bare metal than

use a virtual machine or cross compile.

Those two options will not show you 

real world errors.

When porting your own or others' software, 

if the source is not open source then do not

bother. They have their reasons.  Make yours

available to the public. If it is open source and

people find vulnerabilities and/ or exploits,

you will know what to fix. Tell them, 

"Thank you."

The more operating systems that you port to

and the more CPU ISA architectures you also

port to, the more users, eyes, and ears.

Do it yourself by hand and accept your

errors and mistakes. This will teach and 

assist you in better coding and development. 

Take and accept a challenge.  If it will compile 

on the most difficult environments, then it

will definitely compile on the most common.

Enjoy and happy positive hacking.