Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 20:01:18 GMT From: pmc@citylink.dinoex.sub.org (Peter Much) To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: "s/stable/broken/g" Message-ID: <Jy5EA6.1n3@citylink.dinoex.sub.org>
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Dear all, I have two computers. Both of them were running Release 5.5, and they were doing all that is needed, and I was perfectly happy with this. Now, as we know, security support for Release 5.5 will terminate during this spring, and as my computers are exposed to the Internet, this means that I MUST upgrade, even while I do not need or want anything from a higher release. So I upgraded the first computer to Release 6.3. The outcome was that on this computer, where Release 5 was running just fine for years, a Generic 6.3 kernel would just pagefault during boot. Nogo at all. I searched for the problem, and found it to be the network card - which is just a common standard de0 PCI card. Now, without network I cannot access the Internet, and if I do not access the Internet, then I do not need to upgrade! This is some kind of catch22. So I searched for the bug, I found something, I fixed it, and it helped. I published a description of the problem and the fix via sendbug (kern/120915) - but apparently nobody seems to be interested in a nonfunctional network on a so-called "production" release. Actually, I do not know what else I would have to do besides finding the bug, isolating the bug, creating a fix, using the fix and publishing the fix? So now I started to upgrade my second computer to Release 6.3. And when booting the Generic kernel, it does just pagefault quickly after booting is completed. I isolated the problem - it is the network card. This one is a well-known standard ed0 ISA card that has worked fine for 15 years now, and it pagefaults as soon as the first data is transferred. I replaced the card with one of a different brand (but also ed0), and the problem went away. So, the mere statistical evidence is this: when upgrading from release 5.5 to 6.3, 100% of the computers that did work fine with 5.5 do no longer run. I suppose the next thing I should do is some kind of reality check, to adjust my understanding of the words "stable", "production" and "upgrade". :-/ But the more severe aspect of the matter is, if this is a trend that will intensify with further upgrades, and if so, then what to do about it. "never change a running system" would be a good approach, if there were not the security issues. The other approach is to always buy new hardware. That is the Windows approach, and I do not like it. When a Pentium-II/350 is only 10% loaded, then why should one get a new computer for the job?? It just eats more power and creates ecohazard waste. :-( rgds, PMc
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