From owner-freebsd-current Fri Mar 8 11:24:22 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mrout1.yahoo.com (mrout1.yahoo.com [216.145.54.171]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 047F537B43F; Fri, 8 Mar 2002 11:23:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from zoot.corp.yahoo.com (zoot.corp.yahoo.com [216.145.52.89]) by mrout1.yahoo.com (8.11.6/8.11.6/y.out) with ESMTP id g28JNaA66009; Fri, 8 Mar 2002 11:23:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (dougb@localhost) by zoot.corp.yahoo.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g28JNa332829; Fri, 8 Mar 2002 11:23:36 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from DougB@FreeBSD.org) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 11:23:36 -0800 (PST) From: Doug Barton X-X-Sender: dougb@zoot.corp.yahoo.com To: Murray Stokely , Cc: current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Preparing innocent users for -current In-Reply-To: <20020308101724.GA8515@freebsdmall.com> Message-ID: <20020308110442.G32653-100000@zoot.corp.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Fri, 8 Mar 2002, Murray Stokely wrote: > As discussed at BSDCon, the release engineers are committed to > releasing a relatively stable snapshot of FreeBSD -CURRENT on or > around April 1, 2002. As much as I still think this is really bad timing for all the reasons I expressed at the summit, if we're going to do this one of the things we must absolutely do is create the list of "Things in -current that will bite unsuspecting RELENG_4 users in the ass," and their solutions, if any. Off the top of my head: 1. phk malloc debugging flags enabled by default. Solutions include recompiling apps, and toggling things off in /etc/malloc.conf. 2. pam modules break backwards compatibility with pam apps compiled on RELENG_4. The only solution I've been offered is to recompile things (or, my preferred solution, don't use pam). 3. xconsole causes periodic panics. The problem (according to BDE) is "a well-know bug in printf(9)," caused by "The TIOCCONS ioctl ... panics when printf() is called while sched_lock is held." I reported this bug in October 2001, if anyone wants to look through the archives. Related to 2. above, since the port of XFree86-4 is still at 4.1.0, I went to the xfree86.org web page and installed their packaged version of 4.2.0. Because of the pam breakage, xdm from that package doesn't work. Therefore, it would be nice to have the port upgraded so that the only solution available to users would actually be available. Other than that, -current works pretty well for me. I use it daily on my workstation at home, and have for years. My strategy is to keep good backups, especially of a known-safe kernel. I used to compile -current every few days, and I'd usually install it too. I stopped doing that after the smpng work started, but I still try to update at least once a month. The periods of instability are a price I'm willing to pay for a better system down the road, even if it's frustrating sometimes. Doug -- "We have known freedom's price. We have shown freedom's power. And in this great conflict, ... we will see freedom's victory." - George W. Bush, President of the United States State of the Union, January 28, 2002 Do YOU Yahoo!? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message