The last update of my local ports collection was most annoying and unnerving. Here are some notes to dodge 3 of the bullets.
Xorg 7.4: Either disable HAL at compile time or
add the following to your xorg.conf (assuming your
keyboard is configured properly etc.):
Option "AutoAddDevices" "OFF"
Else, you would have to configure your keyboard settings (such
as layout, rules etc.) in some obscure HAL configuration file
that is hard to find. And to be frank, I was unwilling to create
some XML files in a directory pretty well hidden on my hard disk
just to get my X server to accept input from German
keyboards. Seriously, what is wrong with the
InputDevice section in Xorg.conf?
libxine: Don't compile it with pulseaudio
support if you don't need it. I did compile it with that option
and my reward was that programs such as Xine or
Amarok would hang. Using the last of their
strength, they would utter cryptic messages on the command-line:
caps.c: Dropping root privileges.
Since I did not need pulseaudio, I recompiled
libxine, Xine, and Amarok and successfully resurrected them.
CUPS: Be sure to install print/gutenprint
from the ports collection. Your applications and printers will
thank you for it. And as a boon, you will not get any
Unsupported format 'application/postscript'
messages because all necessary dependencies will be available.
That's it. FreeBSD FTW!