From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Dec 17 12:50:39 1995 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id MAA19630 for hackers-outgoing; Sun, 17 Dec 1995 12:50:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost.cdrom.com (localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA19613 Sun, 17 Dec 1995 12:50:35 -0800 (PST) X-Authentication-Warning: freefall.freebsd.org: Host localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: current@freebsd.org, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD-current-stable ??? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <19610.819233434.1@freefall.freebsd.org> Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 12:50:34 -0800 Message-ID: <19611.819233434@freefall.freebsd.org> From: Poul-Henning Kamp Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk > >> Hi FreeBSD core team ! > >> > >> [ Possibly I'm speaking for many other people here ] > >It's possible. > > Possibly for non-developers :-). likely so.. > >> > >> Generally I would be interested to help testing and debugging new > >> FreeBSD-current features. But when reading the -current mailing list, > >> FreeBSD-current, so to say FreeBSD-2.2 in it's early days, seems to be > ^^^^^^^^^^^ > >> an instability nightmare. Perhaps this expression is a bit oversized, > >> but please understand my point of view. > >I do dissagree. -current is exceptionally stable for what it is... > > I agree with Julian. actually even more stable than in a long time :-) > >I run -currrent (up until last week) on my machine at TFS.com > >and I have had NO troubles with it... > > I have had only one serious problem (2 core dumps apparently caused by > some vm change in the last month). I have some bogons, but they are quite likely HW actually. (Don't worry Rod, I just have not got around to flash the boot-patition correctly :-). I would like to release some steam here. If we are to keep abreast with the world, (we're presently running a mere 5 years behind schedule I think), we need to move some things a long way. If changes like devfs, protoizing & staticization are supposed to be commited as flaw-less, then we might as well close shop and run Linux. -current is generally compilable, it's perfectly stable for long stretches of time, but right after any major release, a lot of saved up powder gets ignited with -current as target, and that is simply the way it is. If somebody were to stand forward and say, "I'm willing to maintain a tag on the CVS-tree which runs a little behind HEAD, and which is stable", (firest I would question that persons sanity actually), I would think that we may go for it, but any more administrative work, and the core- team will melt. I as a FreeBSD hacker, and as a -core in particular, try to do my best, and that is it really. I cannot do it any better. Sometimes you break code you didn't know were there. I have found so much dead code during my staticization sweep that I'm positively sure nobody else, (including superhumans like Terry :-) knows all of our source and how it fits together, to a level of detail that would allow us to run a "safe shop" in -current. Maybe when the kernel gets more modular, this will be less of a problem, but now, that's the way it is. If you want to help us, but only have one machine, run -stable (2.1.0 presently), and work in user-space. (If you only have one machine, kernel-hacking is very dangerous anyway.) User-space isn't any more boring than the kernel. If you don't belive me do this: cd /usr/src make CFLAGS=-Wall plenty to do :-( FreeBSD needs a lot more than kernel hackers. Go for it :-) Poul-Henning