What is "pkgsrc"

pkgsrc (package source) is a package management system for Unix-like operating systems. It was forked from the FreeBSD ports collection in 1997 as the primary package management system for NetBSD. Since then it has evolved independently: in 1999, support for Solaris was added, later followed by support for other operating systems. DragonFly BSD, from release 1.4 to 3.4, used pkgsrc as its official packaging system. MINIX 3 and the Dracolinux distribution both include pkgsrc in their main releases.

There are multiple ways to install programs using pkgsrc. The pkgsrc bootstrap contains a traditional ports collection that utilizes a series of makefiles to compile software from source. Another method is to install pre-built binary packages via the pkg_add and pkg_delete tools. A high-level utility named pkgin also exists, and is designed to automate the installation, removal, and update of binary packages in a manner similar to APT or yum.

pkgsrc currently contains over 17000 packages (over 20000 including work-in-progress packages maintained outside the official tree) and includes most popular open source software. It now supports around 23 operating systems, including AIX, various BSD derivatives, HP-UX, IRIX, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and QNX.