From owner-freebsd-stable Sun Nov 17 12:45:25 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 134CD37B404 for ; Sun, 17 Nov 2002 12:45:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from hub.org (hub.org [64.49.215.141]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B988C43E8A for ; Sun, 17 Nov 2002 12:45:23 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from scrappy@hub.org) Received: from hub.org (hub.org [64.49.215.141]) by hub.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 580228A19C8; Sun, 17 Nov 2002 16:45:21 -0400 (AST) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 16:45:21 -0400 (AST) From: "Marc G. Fournier" To: Vallo Kallaste Cc: Eugene Grosbein , Kenneth Mays , Subject: Re: -STABLE was stable for long time (Re: FreeBSD: Server or Desktop OS?) In-Reply-To: <20021117182801.GB1131@tiiu.internal> Message-ID: <20021117163832.T23359-100000@hub.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sun, 17 Nov 2002, Vallo Kallaste wrote: > On Sun, Nov 17, 2002 at 10:49:45PM +0700, Eugene Grosbein > wrote: > > > > Your question brings up an issue that was talked about several > > > times, and it was addressed in the docs and the newsgroup. > > > -STABLE is an engineering development branch that is 'more > > > stable' than -CURRENT, but not more stable than -RELEASE. > > > -STABLE is NOT for end users/customers for official production > > > use (i.e. do so at your own risk). > > > I wonder why no one says that -STABLE really WAS stable and WAS intended > > for end users less than 2 years ago. Moreover, Hanbook said you > > need -STABLE if you are using FreeBSD in production environment > > and you need stability, Handbook said it even 15 months ago. > > And it has been assetring so for long time, that's where the name > > of this branch came from. Anyone can see that in CVS. > > Exactly my point. The stability of FreeBSD is slowly but definitely > deteriorating. The more the OS is gaining complexity, more bugs will > be introduced or old bugs surface. As I understand it's very hard to > support ever changing hardware, growing needs of userbase and hold > the OS quality (in this context stability) on the track. I think the main thing that is bothering me is the priority that is being attributed to bug reports on the -STABLE branch ... when one of my servers crashes, it takes ~1hr or so for it to dump core, since it has to use netdump to dump it to another server (I don't have 4+ gig of continuous swap space) and then there is the extra time required to fsck 100gig of disk space ... If someone could jump onto, and fix, why it crashed in an "exceptional" environment, think of how much less chance there would be of someone else's computer crashing ... Using -STABLE, I upgrade my desktops and servers once every ~30days ... I'd be happy to get 30 days uptime on my loaded servers before having to upgrade, but if it crashes, my first steps have always been to report a crash dump (if I can) and then upgrade to the next -STABLE, since it might be somethign that is already fixed ... To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message