Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:53:52 -0600 From: "Steven Susbauer" <stupendoussteve@hotmail.com> To: jerrymc@msu.edu Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Question: the stable edition of Freebsd Message-ID: <BAY122-F395345B2D0AA448DE9B812BA1D0@phx.gbl>
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Jerry McAllister wrote: >On Mon, Nov 03, 2008 at 10:01:21PM +0800, Alex Zhang wrote: > >>Dear Support: >> I'm a newcomer and want to install FreeBSD for study. Could you pls let >>me >>know which the stable edition of FreeBSD now? >> >>And let me know how to subscribe the Q&A list that I prefer. >> >>Thanks in advance. >> > >All of this is well documented on the FreeBSD website (www.freebsd.org) > >For informatino on the mailing lists, go to: > http://www.freebsd.org/community/mailinglists.html >or > http://lists.FreeBSD.org/mailman/listinfo and look around. > >The version setup in FreeBSD can be a little confusing for newcomers >because the terms stable and current are used in very specific ways - >formally defined rather than in the more loose general conversation >way we often use them. > >Current is the bleeding edge of development work - nothing is guaranteed >and stable is the development branch that is actually intended to >eventually >become the next new version -- rather than current being the official >present version out or stable being the most reliable version as one might >guess from just the words before studying the documentation.. >Check this part of the handbook: > >http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html > >If you are a FreeBSD beginning, what you want is a RELEASE version. >The latest at the moment are 6.3 and 7.0 In the present form of >the web page, the latest RELEASEs plus the next two are listed right >there on the first page. > >Other information on upcoming releases can be found on the Release >Engineering page: > http://www.freebsd.org/releng/index.html > >By the way, "releng" stands for Release Engineering here and when >you track a version for security updates you track a RELENG version. > >So, if you installed FreeBSD 7.1, then in your csupfile you would put: > > *default tag=RELENG_7_1 > >That would get you the security updates for FreeBSD 7.1 > >If you wanted to jump up to stable you would put: > > *default tag=RELENG_7 > >and that would be the stable version of the FreeBSD 7 branch. >But, the funny thing about it is that the STABLE line is not mean >that it is actually stable. They try to assure that it compiles >and builds. And, usually it is pretty good. But it hasn't gone >through all the official builds and been run against all the known >problem sets as has a RELEASE when it is 'released'. > >So, for now, just install a RELEASE - probably 7.1 if you can wait >or 7.0 right now and track the security fixes by csup-ing to RELENG_7_1 >or RELENG_7_0 > >Have fun, > >////jerry If using a release, can he not use freebsd-update to keep current on fixes rather than rebuilding everything? On a slow system, the more binary the better. -Steve
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