From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 5 10:24:53 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4D949106566C for ; Mon, 5 May 2008 10:24:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from michael.le_barbier@laposte.net) Received: from darboux.math.univ-montp2.fr (darboux.math.univ-montp2.fr [162.38.126.4]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0EB258FC16 for ; Mon, 5 May 2008 10:24:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from michael.le_barbier@laposte.net) Received: from darboux.math.univ-montp2.fr (darboux.math.univ-montp2.fr [162.38.126.4]) by darboux.math.univ-montp2.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 18BC7A503CC; Mon, 5 May 2008 11:56:24 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <481ED9C7.4050209@laposte.net> Date: Mon, 05 May 2008 11:56:23 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Micha=EBl_Le_Barbier?= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.13) Gecko/20080313 SeaMonkey/1.1.9 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: prad References: <20080504221223.20b5827e@gom.home> In-Reply-To: <20080504221223.20b5827e@gom.home> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: living with freebsd 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: Mon, 05 May 2008 10:24:53 -0000 prad wrote: > i'd like to know how people live with freebsd. > It will soon be the ninth anniversary of my union with FreeBSD. I have been pleased of it, all the time. > do you use only ports or only packages or a mixture? > do you upgrade from version to version using freebsd tools or do it > manually? > do you have a different approach regarding the above depending on > whether it is for a server or a desktop? I use FreeBSD in the `desktop' setting, I do a lot of TeX, programming, and scientific computing. In my own views, I segregate applications in three groups: -- the zombie group, consisting of applications I rarely use, and do not care to keep up to date (almost everything); -- the living group, consisting of applications I use often but moderately care to keep up to date (Emacs and seamonkey); -- the hot group, consisting of applications I am very interested in (e.g. some libraries I use in my programs). I do not care to update the zombie group. I will maybe consider updating ports in the living group, either for security reasons or for some new functionnality I heard of and I really want to have. It is not unlikely I update ports in the hot group every time there is a new major release is available. I do the base install from packages, and use portupgrade for updating my software, after I have read /usr/ports/UPDATING. My primary goal is having a working system for a minimal maintenance cost, the way I do works pretty well for me; but some others may have better ways to deal with this. -- Cheers, Michaël