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Date:      Wed, 27 Oct 1999 20:21:43 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Lowell Gilbert <lowell@world.std.com>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: CVSUP and Make World
Message-ID:  <rd6hfjbbj55.fsf@world.std.com>
In-Reply-To: Brett Taylor's message of Wed, 27 Oct 1999 19:18:03 -0400 (EDT)
References:  <Pine.BSF.4.10.9910271916390.6422-100000@peloton.runet.edu>

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Brett Taylor <brett@peloton.runet.edu> writes:

> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, 27 Oct 1999, Broderick Wood wrote:
> 
> >   I CVSUP the system and ports on a weekly basis and do a make
> > buildworld after each system CVSUP.  How often would you recommend
> > doing the make installworld?
> 
> Why would you _only_ buildworld? 

There are a number of reasons.  One good one is to put buildworld in a
cron job so that it runs at a time that you're not trying to use the
machine.  You really don't want any system pieces to be installed
without watching over them, so you leave the installworld to be done by
hand.  You also get the advantage that you never try to install a system
that won't compile.

Another reason is that you can do the buildworld in multi-user mode and
still be able to drop to single-user mode for the install.  Not everyone
worries about this, but for those who do, it's very convenient.  If you
have bandwidth and unused CPU to burn, you can afford to do this a lot
more often than is worth rebooting your system for the upgrade.

That point aside, Brett Taylor's advice about how often to install the
upgrades is right on the money; it's subjective.  If you have a specific
feature or bug fix you want to get, you may be able to recompile and
reinstall just that one part of the system, but that requires a bit of
knowledge of the dependencies within the system.  A lot of us watch the
commits to see whether something significant has been changed, and make
a technical judgement on when enough has changed to be worth changing
the system (and risking problems, and necessarily rebooting).  Those who
aren't particularly technical may not have any good reason to upgrade
even as often as every release.

Be well.


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