Regarding point 2, the ports system works a little bit differently to typical package managers, and easily accomodates running customised versions of the software you need.
Another difference between FreeBSD and (most) Linux distros is the concept of the "base system". Things in /bin and /usr/bin are part of the base, any additional packages you install end up in /usr/local. This has the nice effect of separating things you really, really need to work for the system to be functional (i.e. boot and log in) and software that is "nice to have" but not strictly necessary (your webservers and Rubies and what have you). I also find that /usr/local/etc is generally very small and tidy, which makes administration and backup a doddle.
I think the author of the post is a little bit muddled on what /usr/local is for, though - the analogy to installing applications to ~/Applications on OS X is completely flawed, as in OS X that installs things only for the current user, whereas /usr/local is available to all.
True, the linux equivalent would be ~/.local . What I usually do for software I need only for my user is to install it in ~/.local/<package name> and then symlink what I need into ~/.local/bin,lib,etc.. with bin being on my PATH. If the binary needs to see its own libs, I write a small script that sets LD_LIBRARY_PATH prior to execution and use that. This way removing is simply rm -r ~/.local/<package> and I don't pollute the rest of the system.
Another difference between FreeBSD and (most) Linux distros is the concept of the "base system". Things in /bin and /usr/bin are part of the base, any additional packages you install end up in /usr/local. This has the nice effect of separating things you really, really need to work for the system to be functional (i.e. boot and log in) and software that is "nice to have" but not strictly necessary (your webservers and Rubies and what have you). I also find that /usr/local/etc is generally very small and tidy, which makes administration and backup a doddle.
I think the author of the post is a little bit muddled on what /usr/local is for, though - the analogy to installing applications to ~/Applications on OS X is completely flawed, as in OS X that installs things only for the current user, whereas /usr/local is available to all.