Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 22:46:05 -0500 From: Nikolas Britton <freebsd@nbritton.org> To: "Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P." <kdk@daleco.biz> Cc: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Do I upgrade from 5.x to anything ? Message-ID: <4158DE7D.4000401@nbritton.org> In-Reply-To: <4157716F.5080408@daleco.biz> References: <415766F7.3070301@optonline.net> <4157716F.5080408@daleco.biz>
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Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P. wrote:
> bsdfsse wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have been running 4.10-Stable for about 3 weeks, and one of my
>> computers doesn't work with it. Apparently FreeBSD 4.x doesn't like
>> the Asus motherboard's HD controller, and I constantly get disk
>> errors. HOWEVER, 5.x seems to work fine.
>>
>
> Seems strange, but not impossible.
>
>> For the last few weeks, I've been going through this ritual of
>> installing 4.10-Release, then immediately
>> upgrading to 4-Stable - using the instructions in a book I bought
>> ("Absolute BSD").
>>
>> My big machine has an Asus motherboard, 160GB, and 2 x 200GB Maxtor
>> drives. It also has a new
>> 400w power supply, and a Celeron chip. I basically replaced every
>> part of the machine trying to get to
>> 4.x to work, then gave up and am trying to run 5.x.
>>
>> Is there something I should be doing after I install 5.x-Release to
>> get the latest software? On 4.x I would
>> install "cvsup" and "cvsup-without-gui", then running "cvs -g -L 2
>> stable-supfile", and finally doing a make
>> buildworld, etc, etc. I have no idea what my options are on 5.x
>
>
>
> Same story. But you don't need to install both "cvsup" and
> "cvsup-without-gui". Unless you've just
> gotta have eye candy, just install the nogui version and run it in an
> xterm or something ... or an
> alternate console...
I agree...
>
>
>>
>> I heard 5.x-Stable is coming out in October, so does that mean you
>> can't really update 5.x until October? I installed the 5.3-Beta CD,
>> but the stable-supfile looks like it will try to get the 4.x stable
>> code. I also did
>> not really want to run "current" since this machine is supposed to be
>> my home server.
>>
>
> HEAD is now been tagged as version 6 ... you're right that you don't
> want that. See more below...
FreeBSD-CURRENT (HEAD) is now v6, at one time it was v5, v4, v3, ....
Unless you are suicidal or a FreeBSD developer you should never track
HEAD. There are a few exceptions though, for example when -CURRENT is
getting ready to become a -STABLE branch, like with FreeBSD 5.0/5.1/5.2,
but even then you should only stay within that release branch, For
example FreeBSD v5.2.1's CVS branch tag would then be RELENG_5_2,
updating would then give you only security and errata fixes for 5.2.x,
not HEAD.
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html
http://www.freebsd.org/releng/index.html
>
>
>> I mostly want my ports up to date, so I can run Thunderbird, Firefox,
>> etc (if they are available on 5.x).
>>
>
> Well, you don't need to cvsup *src* to get your ports up to date.
> Your ports tree would need to
> be updated, and then reinstall those ports. Or use portupgrade ...
>
> And the ports tree is the same for everybody. You always cvsup
> CURRENT ports ....
The FreeBSD ports system has no concept of branches and what not. So
whenever you CVSup it will allways be tracking HEAD.
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports-using.html
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvsup.html
>
>
>> Maybe I should make my working 4.x box my "server", and make my
>> nonworking machine a 5.x "desktop".
>>
>> My original plan was to run 4.x on all my home boxen, then load 5.x
>> when it got to around 5.3.1 - except
>> now my big box wont run 4.x. So I am forced to load 5.x now, or just
>> let the machine sit for a month.
>>
>
> If you have 5.3BETA, run it, and cvsup/makebuildworld, etc next
> month. Not a problem AFAIK. Now,
> if you'd been running 5.1 that'd be a different story, as I understand
> it ...
In most circumstances if your a newbie to FreeBSD and your hardware is a
i586 or better you should forget about using FreeBSD 4.x and just use
5.x, there is no point in learning about 4.x and then having to relearn 5.x.
FreeBSD does not normally have point releases, so FreeBSD 5.3.1 will
never happen, FreeBSD 5.2.1 was the exception to the rule.
What you should do is download and install FreeBSD
5.3-BETA6-i386-disc1.iso and set your sup-file to track the RELENG_5_3
branch. Then when 5.3-RELEASE is released and the 5.3 (RELENG_5_3)
branch is cut you can CVSup and update your system to 5.3-RELEASE pXX (p
= patch level). Then when 5.4 is released you would change your sup-file
to RELENG_5_4 and update your system to the 5.4 branch. You should NOT
be tracking 5-STABLE (RELENG_5) until things settle down a bit, my guess
is after 5.5-RELEASE. This is because tracking -STABLE does not guaranty
system stability, what it mean is that the code base is relatively
stable and that it will not receive *radical* changes.
http://www.freebsd.org/releng/index.html#freeze
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/releng/index.html
> .
>
>> Another option is to try and use the help on the mail lists to figure
>> out why 4.x wont run on my big box. I tried so many things I don't
>> really want to think about it anymore, lol. The Asus motherboard is
>> a replacement
>> for another one that died while initially trying to install 4.x I
>> literally replaced everything inside the case: power
>> supply, motherboard, chip, drive controller, RAM, HD's, cables,
>> CDR's, cables. The current error is the hardware
>> error "Signal 11". %-(
>>
>> Well back to my original question: Any suggestions on how to get the
>> currently available 5.x tree modestly
>> up-to-date? Or should I wait until it matures more?
>>
>> thx!
>>
>
> Well, 5.3BETA is pretty doggone up to date if you ask me ... but,
> whatever.
>
> An understanding of the RELEASE tags might help. That information
> is in the Handbook, Chapter 19 IIRC, "The Cutting Edge".
>
> You should be able to modify the stable-supfile to grab RELENG_5 instead
> of RELENG_4, this would get you to "BETA3", methinks (haven't checked
> the site today, but IIRC that's what was on ftp two days ago when I was
> there.)
>
> For ports, use /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile when you cvsup.
> You may also want to install portupgrade
> (/usr/ports/sysutils/portupgrade),
> although there were problems with it a few days ago; I think they're
> fixed
> now, caveat emptor and YMMV and all that ....
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