9.0 beta2 & the new bsdinstaller

[Garrett Cooper]

On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 10:16 AM, Warren Block <wblock at wonkity.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Sep 2011, Antonio Olivares wrote:
>
>>> More concerns and questions onthe new bsdinstall:
>>>
>>> There is no upgrade function.  How will a user be able to upgrade to
>>> BETA3 (or RC1?) without wiping out BETA2 installation?
>>>
>>> For instance, user might have built many software applications from ports
>>> and not want to rebuild everything.
>>>
>>
>> I have the same doubt/question.  If I update the system via the ports,
>> do I have BETA3/RC1?  or do I have to run
>> # freebsd-update
>>
>> to get the current release?
>
> The operating system is separate from ports.  Source upgrades or
> freebsd-update are used to upgrade FreeBSD, while portsnap and
> portmaster/portupgrade are used to update ports.
>
>> Also, like is suggested, if I update by any means, I will probably
>> have to delete && reinstall everything in the ports.  Is there a way
>> not to do this?
>
> Ports built for 9.x normally do not need to be rebuilt to continue to run on
> 9.x+1.  The ABI is "stable" (unchanging).

    But things can change (and have to me on occasion). If you're
absolutely certain that the ABI/KBI isn't changing, then the
assumption is true, but there are some times that ABI/KBI can change
at a later date if you update from RELEASE to STABLE.
HTH,
-Garrett