As a longtime FreeBSD user, I agree portupgrade[1] sets a pretty high standard. It seems a bit redundant at this date to port something that effectively replicates what MacPorts itself does. Much as it might be fun to tinker with it, would a feature comparison be worth reviewing to see how much duplication there is, and what features would be worth adding? The bi-directional dependency checking, as mentioned, is nice. I also like the ability to stop and start running daemons when they are upgraded. Making packages for deployment elsewhere or simply for backup/archiving is also nice, especially if you have multiple machines to manage. And there are a few ports tools to look at if you're that curious: [/usr/ports/ports-mgmt]:: ls Makefile pkg_replace portlint barry pkg_rmleaves portmanager bpkg pkg_trackinst portmaster bpm pkg_tree portmk genplist pkgfe portscout instant-tinderbox pkgsearch portsearch jailaudit port-authoring-tools portsman kports port-maintenance-tools portsnap managepkg portaudit portsopt newportsversioncheck portaudit-db porttools p5-FreeBSD-Portindex portbrowser portupgrade p5-FreeBSD-Ports portcheck portupgrade-devel pib portcheckout psearch pkg-orphan portconf qtpkg pkg_cutleaves portdowngrade tinderbox pkg_install porteasy vulnerability-test-port pkg_install-devel portell pkg_remove portless 1. http://www.gsp.com/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=1&topic=portupgrade -- Paul Beard / www.paulbeard.org/ <paulbeard@gm​ail.com/paulbeard@mac.com>