From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Mar 15 20:55:50 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D9AA816A402 for ; Thu, 15 Mar 2007 20:55:50 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kris@obsecurity.org) Received: from elvis.mu.org (elvis.mu.org [192.203.228.196]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CB2AA13C45E for ; Thu, 15 Mar 2007 20:55:50 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kris@obsecurity.org) Received: from obsecurity.dyndns.org (elvis.mu.org [192.203.228.196]) by elvis.mu.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A49531A4D8D; Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:55:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: by obsecurity.dyndns.org (Postfix, from userid 1000) id CD7B9515F1; Thu, 15 Mar 2007 16:55:49 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 16:55:49 -0400 From: Kris Kennaway To: alex@schnarff.com Message-ID: <20070315205549.GA88763@xor.obsecurity.org> References: <20070315164706.4fy8vlmhw00kk4s8@mail.schnarff.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20070315164706.4fy8vlmhw00kk4s8@mail.schnarff.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.2i Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Should I Upgrade 5.4 -> 6.2? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 20:55:50 -0000 On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 04:47:06PM -0400, alex@schnarff.com wrote: > First off, I want to thank the people who responded to my thread > "Stability Issues on a 5.4-RELEASE box" a couple of weeks ago; after > disabling hyperthreading, getting a clean run of Memtest back, and > doing some serious fsck'ing of the disks, the box appears to now be > completely stable. I'm still not sure which of the above fixed the > problem...but I'll take a stable system at this point. :-) > > That said, in that thread I had asked about the advisability of > upgrading to 6.2, and it was intelligently pointed out that doing so in > pursuit of stability was a bad idea. Now that the box is stable, > though, I'm back to the same question: should I make the upgrade, and > if so, how should I do it? > > My primary driver for doing so would be to keep current enough that I'm > still getting security and other patches on a regular basis, and that I > can upgrade my applications from ports as necessary. If this is not an > issue, then my only remaining concern would be that it's usually easier > to get support on lists like this if you're running a modern version of > the OS (that's certainly the case with the OpenBSD folks). > > My primary concern with upgrading is that the box is in Portland, OR, > and I'm in Arlington, VA...and while the ISP is friendly, I doubt that > I could count on them for major system recovery if I botch something > during the upgrade. My other worry is that I don't want to break > existing apps if possible (the main one I'm concerned about is > Zope/Plone). This is a production box with moderate traffic, and it > would be a problem if there was extensive downtime. > > Is it worth upgrading? If so, what's the best way to do so -- CVSup, or > some other way? Are there any major caveats if I do choose to upgrade > (or choose to stay with the existing OS)? On general grounds it is well worth running 6.2 over 5.x - depending on your workload you should see performance improvements, and support for 6.2 is much better than for the legacy 5.x branch. Kris