Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 14:00:06 -0800 (PST) From: "Freddie Cash" <fcash-ml@sd73.bc.ca> To: "David Beukes" <dbm@5fm.za.com> Cc: stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Stable vs Release vs Current Message-ID: <50192.192.168.0.200.1077141606.squirrel@mailtest.sd73.bc.ca> In-Reply-To: <web-238362961@mail01.infosat.net> References: <web-238362961@mail01.infosat.net>
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> Have been using FreeBSD for about a year now but haven't > understood or found a definitive answer to the > versions/branches. Would appreciate it if someone could > shed some light; a bit of history follows: There are two development branches for FreeBSD: -CURRENT and -STABLE. -CURRENT is where the majority of all new development it done. This development branch is what the next major release of FreeBSD will be from. Right now, -CURRENT is what will become FreeBSD 5.x. The cvs/cvsup tag for this is a period ".". -STABLE is the everyday, production-quality development branch. New technology is tested in -CURRENT, then ported over to -STABLE as needed. Some new development occurs in this branch, but it's not a common thing. Right now, -STABLE is FreeBSD 4.x. The cvs/cvsup tag for this iis RELENG_4. A release is nothing more than a snapshot taken from either of the branches, put through some testing, deemed good enough for use, and released to the world. Right now, a release can come from either branch. The latest releases are 4.9 and 5.2. When you installed 4.4, you were running 4.4-RELEASE. When you upgraded to 4.8, you were running 4.8-RELEASE. And when you upgrade to 4.9, you will be running 4.9-RELEASE. After each release, a new branch is created to hold just security fixes for that release. This is known as the RELENG_X_Y branch, where X is the major version number, and Y is the minor version number. For instance, there is a RELENG_4_7 for security fixes to 4.7-RELEASE, there is a RELENG_4_8 for security fixes to 4.8-RELEASE, and there is a RELENG_4_9 for security fixes to 4.9-RELEASE.
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