Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 11:10:21 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Lucas <mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org> To: stable@freebsd.org Subject: dot-0 releases Message-ID: <200003221610.LAA20341@blackhelicopters.org>
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As someone who's survived the 2.1->2.2 upgrade, the 2.2->3.0 upgrade, and now the 3.x->4.0 upgrade, I've seen the same discussions every time. People say, "The upgrade path is too hard." People say, "x.0 is safe to use." "No, it's not." "Yes, it is." People say, "The naming scheme is confusing. How about ..." Go search in the -stable archives. I bet the keyword "upgrade" will turn up some of old niggling. These horses were beaten to death when 2.2.0 came out, were propped up mummified when 3.0 came out, and are now skeletons wired together right next to Mr. Tyrranosaurus and Mrs. Diplodocus. One of the things I enjoy about the FreeBSD community is that we are, traditionally, all professionals. Many Linux folks started out doing Linux for fun, whereas the people here are using FreeBSD for honest-to-god work in real-world environments. Originally, to get a job where you had to be a FreeBSD admin, you had to be a UNIX admin. The clue quotient was much higher. (Then there were people like me. But I digress.) If you're an experienced sysadmin, upgrading from source is no big deal. If you're less experienced, then it is a big deal. The documentation can't tell anyone if they personally should upgrade from source. I've been upgrading from source since 97, and only been running FreeBSD since 95. And I have a degree in English, having failed my first term computer class. (There are those who might claim a senior thesis on _Gravity's_Rainbow_ make one eminently qualified to be a UNIX sysadmin. But again, I digress.) While NT might have convinced many people that they can be system administrators without knowing a damn thing about how computers work, the FreeBSD community has always assumed that you know what you're doing. The documentation is written to that audience, and is only now shifting to include less experienced users. I don't think even Nik would claim it's perfect. docs@freebsd.org would welcome patches, I'm sure. And perhaps 5.0 will be a "God help you if you run this release." (I don't think so, with the improvements in quality control for 4.x, but who can say now?) As far as 4.0 goes: I'm usually the paranoid one. My preferred method of determining when to upgrade is when my old version of FreeBSD is about to lose all support. I still have 2.2-stable boxes out there, because they work. So, I've installed 4.0 on two brand-new production machines. Whoa. Much improved all around... I break out my script kiddie tools and slam them, and they just won't die. Suck 80 meg/second between them, via NFS & Diablo... the rest of the office Ethernet dies, the other users show up to damage my head/neck integrity, but FreeBSD keep going. Maybe I'll go buy that switch for a test network now. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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