Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 10:17:42 -0500 (EST) From: "Christopher W. Aiken" <cwaiken@telerama.com> To: Bob Johnson <bob@eng.ufl.edu> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How do I tell what release I have? Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.4.02.10102061014560.20876-100000@frogger.telerama.com> In-Reply-To: <3A801107.AE5F6E52@eng.ufl.edu>
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Very nice explanation !!! Thanks... -=[cwa]=- On Tue, 6 Feb 2001, Bob Johnson wrote: <SNIP> :) :)Nice chart. As clarification I'll add some text: :) :)At any given time there are at least two, and sometimes :)three, versions of FreeBSD that can be considered up to date. :) :)Ongoing development, experimental stuff, etc. is always :)happening, and the version that happens to is called :)"CURRENT". Right now FreeBSD 5.0 is in the CURRENT phase, :)so it is called "5.0-CURRENT", or simply "-CURRENT". :) :)Once in a while, -CURRENT is declared to be ready for :)production use, and the development tree splits off a :)new branch by renaming it to -RELEASE. Thus, at some :)point in the past 4.0-CURRENT was renamed 4.0-RELEASE, :)and was also renamed 5.0-CURRENT so that there would still :)be a CURRENT version to use for new development. For a :)brief period, until someone started adding more new stuff :)to -CURRENT, 4.0-RELEASE and 5.0-CURRENT were identical :)(and so was 4.0-STABLE, but we haven't gotten to that yet). :) :)As new ideas are tested in CURRENT and proved to be "good", :)they are ported back to the production version, i.e. the :)RELEASE. The RELEASE, then, is also always changing, and :)to distinguish the exact configuration at the time the :)RELEASE was created from subsequent versions that have :)had these changes added, the changed version is called :)STABLE. Thus, the most recent production release of :)FreeBSD was called 4.2-RELEASE, but if you include the :)changes that have been made since it was released, you :)have 4.2-STABLE. Like CURRENT, a complete specification of :)a STABLE version must include the date and time it was built :)because it changes every day as more changes are made. :) :)Every once in a while (roughly three times a year), the :)STABLE version is frozen as a RELEASE and distributed :)on CDs (and as downloadable ISO CD images). This is where :)minor version numbers come from. Thus, although 4.0-RELEASE :)was created by freezing 4.0-CURRENT, 4.1-RELEASE and :)4.2-RELEASE were created by freezing 4.x-STABLE. :) :)Finally, for some time after a new production release :)is created (i.e. a new major version number), the old one :)will continue to receive bug fixes, particularly for :)security-related problems. Thus, the old 3.5-STABLE is :)still rarely updated with security patches, but probably :)won't be for much longer. :) :)To summarize: new development happens in -CURRENT. Right :)now that's 5.0-CURRENT. Production releases are called :)-RELEASE, and when you add in accumulated changes to the :)latest production release, you get -STABLE. Major version :)numbers change when -CURRENT becomes -RELEASE. Minor version :)numbers change when -STABLE becomes -RELEASE. New RELEASEs :)are distributed on CD ROM. Tertiary version numbers are :)created only for special situations. Right now new :)development is in 5.0-CURRENT, the latest production :)release available on CD is 4.2-RELEASE, and the latest :)production version (downloadable as source code but not :)distributed on CD) is called 4.2-STABLE. :) :)I don't know if that long winded explanation was worth :)the effort, particularly since this is explained in the :)FreeBSD Handbook at http://www.freebsd.org , but since :)I've already done the work, here it is... :) :)- Bob :) :) :)To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org :)with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message :) -- Christopher W. Aiken, Scenery Hill, Pa, USA chris at cwaiken dot com, www.cwaiken.com Debian GNU/Linux 2.2_r2 & FreeBSD 4.2 RELEASE To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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