Have I mentioned that FreeBSD can be quite, in fact very, frustrating

Ok, I now have FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE running well on my Dell E520 and this clean install went according to plan with none of the problems I mentioned in my last post.
I can only conclude that the problem was caused by some server or other failing to provide a requested package.
Subsequently, I installed all of my usual stuff like Yakuake, Cairo-dock and Google Gadgets, all from ports.
Actually Google Gadgets seems deprecated now as Google no longer provide the gallery of gadgets. So, it's actually pretty useless as only a clock and RSS reader remain as available gadgets.
I'll dump this app when I get around to installing Conky.

Ok so far. But then I decided to install Compiz-Fusion 3D effects. I had done this in an earlier version of FreeBSD without any problems.
But this time, the installation of compiz-fusion from /usr/ports/x11-wm/compiz-fusion stopped on this error:

libtool: link: cannot find the library '/usr/local/lib/libxcb-aux.la' or unhandled argument '/usr/local/lib/libxcb-aux.la'

 Luckily, this forum thread discusses what seems to be a similar problem. Can't yet say if it exactly solved my problem as the fix is ongoing, and ongoing and .....ongoing.
In essence, the problem is vaguely referred to in /usr/ports/UPDATING on 16/01/2012 with this entry:

AFFECTS: users of x11/xcb-util
  AUTHOR: garga@FreeBSD.org

  x11/xcb-util was updated to 0.3.8 and was split in new modules.
  Dependencies were adjusted but main port symbols were moved to a single
  library, xcb-util.so.  For this reason, all dependent ports must be
  recompiled.If you use portmaster, run:

  # portmaster -R -r xcb-util-0

  Or for portupgrade:

  # portupgrade -r xcb-util-0\*

Ok, sounds simple enough.
However, disconcertingly, neither of the two commands suggested in the UPDATING entry actually worked on my machine.
Nevertheless, a command that actually seems to do something is posted as a later post in the above thread as:

# portmaster -f -r xcb-util-0

Well, this certainly does something. In my case it's been doing just that for about 56 hours at time of posting. Additionally, it shows no sign of abating.
Luckily all of the options were available for choice at the start of the process so that the recompilation could continue uninterrupted.
To see what's going on, I had to extend the width of my terminal to the full width of my screen. Postmaster seems to print on top of the terminal details of the current recompile.
For example, right now I'm seeing

portmaster: xcb-util-0.3.8,1 1/1>>dbus-glib-0.94>>dbus-1.4.14_2>>libX11-1.4.4,1>>libxcb-1.7>>libxslt-1.1.26_3>>libxml-2.7.8_2>>pkg-config-0.25_1>>gmake-3.82>>gettext-0.18.1,1>>libtool-2.4.2 (1942/735)

This seems to be the dependency tree that's being recompiled.
Fine, but there's a couple of things I don't understand:
1. The 1942/735 at the end of the above increments, more or less, with each recompile. But why did it surpass the invariant 735? I had thought initially this was the number of recompiles that needed to be carried out. But no, it reached 735 and sailed right on by as if it has no significance.
2. Very frequent warnings are received of the type

devel/gettext is listed as a dependency, but there is no installed versionTry portmaster --check-depends

This is weird because looking at the printout from the recompile, devel/gettext has been installed literally hundreds of times to date. So what's going on here?
I found a thread somewhere saying that this is due to an ignorable portmaster problem. Can't find this thread now, though.

Hopefully, it'll end soon and I can see if compiz-fusion if now installable.

So, this is what I mean by frustrating. What seems to be a new problem, that certainly didn't exist the last time I installed compiz fusion in FreeBSD, this time essentially hijacks my computer and almost makes it unusable, particularly as I have four other OSes on this machine.