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Date:      Sun, 13 Dec 2020 18:28:36 +0000
From:      bugzilla-noreply@freebsd.org
To:        x11@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   [Bug 250700] drm-kmod i915kms binary package not working on 12.2-RELEASE
Message-ID:  <bug-250700-7141-VUavFj2eaT@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/>
In-Reply-To: <bug-250700-7141@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/>
References:  <bug-250700-7141@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/>

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https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3D250700

--- Comment #17 from Bruce Lilly <bruce.lilly@gmail.com> ---
(In reply to Niclas Zeising from comment #16)
Known issues affecting a release ought to be documented clearly in the rele=
vant
release notes and hardware notes, no?

Pointing out the failure in documenting supposedly-known issues isn't a ran=
t;
it's pointing out bugs (in documentation and procedure) that ought to be
corrected; release notes is exactly where "known issues" are supposed to be
documented.

A statement in the release notes that freebsd-update is expected to work for
amd64[,i386] binary upgrades of kernel (presumably including kernel modules)
and unmodified userland utilities, if/when in fact it is known *not* to wor=
k is
at best misleading and just plain wrong.  Instead, the release notes should
clearly state (with at least as much emphasis as the final "Important" "This
change does not affect[...]" note) that binary updates in fact won't work, =
at
least for systems where kldstat lists "i915kms.ko" (note that I've given a =
hint
about how to identify such systems).  Additionally, the release notes could
provide some details about possible work-arounds.  Ideally, there wouldn't =
be a
release until it was known to work (either a point release that is truly bi=
nary
compatible, or a version bump with compatible binaries).

"Supporting development" is tied to advocacy, and undocumented or
poorly-documented major "gotchas" are an impediment to advocacy (among other
things). I'm not the first or only person to point this out in comments her=
e.

The "Unsupported relocation type" resulted after attempting to rollback the
failed update.  Had the update worked, I would not have had to rollback. Ma=
jor
incompatibilities (such that binary upgrades and rollbacks in fact do not w=
ork)
make what is supposedly a point release into what is effectively a major
version change; distributed binaries aren't compatible, and there's no path
back short of reinstallation.  Note that the release notes specifically
recommend freebsd-update, and freebsd-update(8) specifically addresses roll=
ing
back binary updates.

ZFS boot environments aren't applicable to UFS/FFS installations, and ZFS i=
sn't
typically used on laptops (or even most desktops); ZFS is targeted at large
server applications.  Moreover, it isn't a solution to the upgrade problem;
it's similar to having multiple installations of different versions, e.g. on
different disks or partitions [and in fact I have other installations of 12=
.1,
e.g. on a USB stick].  Abandoning an unusable ZFS boot environment is sligh=
tly
easier (in the moment, not taking into account amortized administrative
overhead of ZFS) than wiping a partition of a failed installation, but a
non-working installation remains non-working, whether it's on ZFS or UFS.

--=20
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