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Add to SafariWhen comparing pkgsrc vs F.lux, the Slant community recommends F.lux for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” F.lux is ranked 27th while pkgsrc is ranked 61st. The most important reason people chose F.lux is:
Helps provide better sleep for more energy during the day.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro pkgin is an apt-like tools for installing binaries from pkgsrc
pkgin aims to be a tool similar to apt/yum for managing pkgsrc binaries by relying on pkg_summary for installing, removing and upgrading packages and dependencies, using a remote repo.
Pro Adapted for use on over a dozen different operating systems
Has been adopted to be used on several Unix-like operating systems and Windows. It's also the default package manager of DragonflyBSD and of the (now discounted) Bluewall Linux distro.
Pro Installs and works in the same way as MacPorts
Installs its own dependencies which means that it is very secure. Cannot install anything unless you use the "sudo" command which is in keeping with the Unix philosophy.
Pro Both binary packages and source build possible
Fast software installation is possible by using binary packages. It's also easy to build from source which allows for different compile-time options (like different UI backends) as well as gaining access to pre-release versions of software in certain cases.
Pro Offering tooling for backporting fixes
Backporting fixes can be done by cherry-picking updates from a newer branch (pkgsrc is released every 3 months) and creating a package. Sometimes bugs need to be fixed for production and there is neither a fix in newer pkgsrc nor the softwares upstream. So pkgsrc has tools like pkgdiff, mkpatches, etc. that help with developing patches and building binary packages from that. A bit of documentation about that process can be found here.
Pro Does not need Xcode command line tools or Xcode.
This means that you can install it fresh on a new installation of MacOS and have all your favorite apps installed right from the start.
Pro Works easily with Ansible
Can be used from within Ansible to install packages on macOS.
Pro Easy installation if you use 3rd party scripts
This one works brilliantly.
Pro Can help sleep better
Helps provide better sleep for more energy during the day.
Pro Eases eye strain
Decreases color temperature at night, changing the normally fluorescent blue of an LCD monitor to a soft orange. Much easier on the eyes, especially in a low-light environment.
Pro Subtle transition
The transition from daytime to nighttime color modes takes an hour by default and will detect your current timezone, meaning that it will happen in the background at sunset, often without you noticing.
Cons
Con Not so broadly used on MacOS as compared with MacPorts
You do not hear about Pkgsrc as openly as you hear the words "HomeBrew" or "MacPorts".
Con Outdated packages
Some packages are outdated.
Con Can't install some packages
Even building well known packages (except MacPorts) from source using the ports can fail.
Con Relatively complicated setup and installation
Installing and setting pkgsrc up is a bit more complicated than in other package managers where it often consists in running a single script.
Con Takes a while to get used to
After installing F.lux, the screen will look a lot more yellow. This takes about a week to fully get used to. You can ease into it by setting the color temps higher than the recommended defaults.
