From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jan 13 14:02:25 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B5D5316A4CE for ; Tue, 13 Jan 2004 14:02:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from rwcrmhc12.comcast.net (rwcrmhc12.comcast.net [216.148.227.85]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 56A7743D2F for ; Tue, 13 Jan 2004 14:02:18 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org) Received: from be-well.no-ip.com ([66.30.200.37]) by comcast.net (rwcrmhc12) with ESMTP id <2004011322021601400phmh0e>; Tue, 13 Jan 2004 22:02:16 +0000 Received: by be-well.no-ip.com (Postfix, from userid 1147) id B75423A; Tue, 13 Jan 2004 17:02:13 -0500 (EST) Sender: lowell@be-well.ilk.org To: "David Meier" References: <64287.195.141.214.38.1073992712.squirrel@hiwatt.lognet.ch> From: Lowell Gilbert Date: 13 Jan 2004 17:02:13 -0500 In-Reply-To: <64287.195.141.214.38.1073992712.squirrel@hiwatt.lognet.ch> Message-ID: <44k73vld7e.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> Lines: 51 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How "safe" is 5.2 to use? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 22:02:25 -0000 "David Meier" writes: > I am relatively new to the world of FreeBSD. But first, congrats to the > new release! I am somewhat insecure on how trustfully I can use the new > release for my intended use (and I hope my questions haven't been posted a > zillion times before). Therefore I hope the FreeBSD nuts can advise me > whether to go for 4.9 or 5.2. Yes. Um, wait, maybe I'll have more-useful advice after more details. > The setup: > hardware: DELL PowerEdge 1750 (Dual XEON, 2GB RAM, RAID 1). > web server: Apache 2.0, MySQL 4.0, PHP 4.3.4, Perl 5.8 > mail server: Postfix, Cyrus IMAPd, Cyrus SASL, Amavis-new, SpamAssassin, > ClamAV Okay, it's pretty new and powerful hardware, and the software is all fairly widely used. Should be no big deal. > The servers will be used for virtual hosting as a small ISP evironment and > housed about 30min from where I work (in case I have to reset them...). That's convenient. > I don't know how and if the instability risks may affect such a setup of > services on the hardware described. Unfortunately, the advisories are kept > in pretty general language, however, I know it is hard to predict how it > will be running on a particular system. I just don't know FreeBSD well > enough to have a 'feel' about it (although I don't rely too much on > 'feelings' in the world of computers). Is upgrading to 5.2 comparable to, > say, I upgrade from RedHat 9 to RedHat's newest release? > > What I like about the 5.x releases is the possibility of taking file > system snapshots, for example to back up the mailboxes. Okay, so you actually would like features that are specific to 5.x. That's a good enough reason to try it; from a user point of view, 5.2 seems to be roughly comparable to 4.9 in dependability. If you can install and configure the system, 5.2 will probably work well for you. This implies that you can go through a fairly thorough system test on your actual hardware before you install the system(s) in their permanent location (or at least before you bring them into production use). If you have any trouble that worries you at all, drop back to 4.9 and install that. How's that? -- Lowell Gilbert, embedded/networking software engineer, Boston area: resume/CV at http://be-well.ilk.org:8088/~lowell/resume/ username/password "public"