The Differences Between Packages and Ports
As mentioned previously, packages are prebuilt binaries that you can install on your system. This is the type of software most users will be familiar with because it is similar to the way software is delivered for Windows or Macintosh. The main advantage of installing software from packages is that it can often be much quicker than installing from the alternative for two primary reasons. The first is that you avoid the time required to compile and build the software from source code. Although building the software from source does not require a lot of your time, it is a time-consuming process for the computer.
The other advantage of prebuilt packages is that it often requires far less download time. ...
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