From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 24 08:49:26 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4B71D106566B for ; Wed, 24 Mar 2010 08:49:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@koitsu.dyndns.org) Received: from qmta05.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net (qmta05.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net [76.96.62.48]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ECB778FC08 for ; Wed, 24 Mar 2010 08:49:25 +0000 (UTC) Received: from omta12.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.62.44]) by qmta05.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast id wwoD1d0060xGWP855wpSQg; Wed, 24 Mar 2010 08:49:26 +0000 Received: from koitsu.dyndns.org ([98.248.46.159]) by omta12.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net with comcast id wwpR1d0013S48mS3YwpRq7; Wed, 24 Mar 2010 08:49:26 +0000 Received: by icarus.home.lan (Postfix, from userid 1000) id E93BC9B436; Wed, 24 Mar 2010 01:49:23 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 01:49:23 -0700 From: Jeremy Chadwick To: Krzysztof Dajka Message-ID: <20100324084923.GA27740@icarus.home.lan> References: <684e57ec1003221341s241c6d4fl9f2afa411c55d697@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <684e57ec1003221341s241c6d4fl9f2afa411c55d697@mail.gmail.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Can't boot after make installworld X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 08:49:26 -0000 On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 08:41:35PM +0000, Krzysztof Dajka wrote: > At first I didn't knew that I am upgrading to bleeding edge/developer > branch of FreeBSD. You're not. There seems to be some misconceptions with regards to what the tags represent, because people's opinions get in the way (mine included). I'll give you the run down as someone who's been using FreeBSD since the 2.2 days. I'm speaking strictly about src (base system, OS, etc.) and not ports. Ports are their own thing, and aren't tagged (the ports infrastructure should work on any of the below tags, which is why ports are always tag=.). I also include correlations to Debian release nomenclature. Hope this helps. -RELEASE (tag=RELENG_x_y) An official release of the OS when a new version comes out. Changes to this tag are rarely made; the exceptions to the rule are security fixes and *serious* (major/extreme) stability fixes. "Serious" means something that would impact the OS from functioning for all systems and is considered volatile -- it does not mean "feature X doesn't work right" or "driver X doesn't function correctly". Users who encounter a problem of this nature are told to run -STABLE where the fix is. The FreeBSD user community often totes this as "the most rock solid release tag there is", which in my opinion hasn't been the case since the 4.x days. We've used the STABLE branches since the 4.x days and have only run into problems on rare occasion (rolling back to a previous commit is as easy as using csup's "date" tag in the supfile). In the Debian world, this tag would correlate with stable/lenny. -STABLE (tag=RELENG_x) Identical to RELEASE except changes to this tag are made fairly regularly. OS/kernel, drivers, base system/userland, and security issues are all addressed here. Meaning: if you encounter something broken in non-CURRENT FreeBSD, the fix/change will most likely go into this branch. The more you read popular FreeBSD mailing lists (freebsd-stable, freebsd-users, freebsd-questions, etc.), the more you'll realise that's the case. MFCs ("merge from CURRENT") are also occasionally brought down from HEAD (see below) into this branch for usability testing. This is where anti-STABLE advocates get their "STABLE isn't stable at all, use RELEASE if you want stability" viewpoint. The FreeBSD user community has split opinions of this branch; some believe it to be "a development/unstable" branch, while others (like myself) believe it to be more solid than RELEASE, since developers are much more focused on STABLE than RELEASE. Developers who break the STABLE branch are usually lectured/reprimanded in some way; such breakage usually appears as buildworld/buildkernel failing. Turnaround time for fixing such breakage is usually 24-48 hours tops. In the Debian world, this tag would correlate with testing/squeeze. -CURRENT (tag=., otherwise known as HEAD) This is where all the crazy, in-development code and features go. That includes library API changes, kernel ABI changes, kernel threading adjustments, experimental drivers ("it works on this one system I have at home but that's it"), or anything else a developer/committer is working on which is brand-spanking-new. It also encapsulates major underlying configuration changes in the OS, including pathname changes or syntactical changes. The OS is also significantly slower (kernel-wise out-of-the-box due to the default kernel configs enabling debugging/analysis features which are necessary for development. This branch is known to break quite often, and that's 100% OK. Data loss can happen as well, depending on what breaks or what bugs are introduced, so if you run this you should absolutely do back-ups. In the Debian world, this tag would correlate with unstable/sid. -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc@parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. 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