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Date:      Wed, 7 May 2025 11:03:01 -0700
From:      Pete Wright <pete@nomadlogic.org>
To:        Joseph Mingrone <jrm@freebsd.org>, freebsd-pkgbase@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: CFT: pkgbase support in 15.0
Message-ID:  <7a751dd1-8013-4368-84ac-b9752d848401@nomadlogic.org>
In-Reply-To: <86a57t3cfu.fsf@asn.ftfl.ca>
References:  <86a57t3cfu.fsf@asn.ftfl.ca>

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On 5/3/25 09:07, Joseph Mingrone wrote:
> In 2003, freebsd-update arrived, allowing users to perform binary
> updates from one FreeBSD release to another.  That's a lot of collective
> time and energy saved by freeing regular users from building the same
> sources locally.  After a solid 22-year run, freebsd-update support will
> end with the 14 branch.  Its successor is pkgbase, which, as the name
> suggests, packages FreeBSD's base system.  In short, the base system can
> now be managed similarly to third-party packages.  To update from one
> point release to another, simply run pkg upgrade.
> 
> In late April, key work landed in the main branch to enable fresh
> installations of FreeBSD with pkgbase support [0].  Existing systems
> running 14.0 or later can also be managed with pkgbase after running
> pkgbasify [1], a tool created under sponsorship from the FreeBSD
> Foundation to convert existing systems.
> 
> We encourage everyone to test pkgbase on spare or test hardware, using
> either the installer from one of the latest 15.0 snapshot images [2] or
> pkgbasify.  Please note that while most of the preliminary feedback has
> been positive, this work is still experimental; you should only test on
> systems you can afford to lose and reinstall.
> 
> Some outstanding work is planned:
>       - FreeBSD handbook documentation
>       - Offline installation support (install media packages)
>       - Working bootonly.iso
>       - Pkgbase-based local and cloud VM images.
> 
> The 15.0 release schedule [3] lists the code slush starting on August 8,
> so the deadline for this work is only a few months away.  Please test
> early and often.  Issues can be reported in Bugzilla using a bug subject
> prefixed with 'pkgbase:'


Just wanted to add a data-point to this.  Thanks for the announcement, 
it was the final motivation I needed to convert my main workstation 
over.  The system is an amd64 box with Nvidia GPU (I use the 
nvidia-modesetting driver) and it was running 14.1-RELEASE.

I performed the migration using the "pkgbasify" tool and ran into zero 
issues.  After the conversion I then upgraded my workstation to the 
14.3-BETA1 and again had no issues.  I did have to install the src 
packages so I could recompile the nvidia driver and drm-kmod, but that 
was very straight forward.  I've been dogfooding all week with zero issues.

Thanks everyone!
-pete

-- 
Pete Wright
pete@nomadlogic.org




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