Staying current with 4.9 - which supfile?

[a at jenisch.at]

 On Fri, Nov 21, 2003 at 01:51:55PM +0000, Matthew Seaman wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 21, 2003 at 12:27:58PM +0100, a at jenisch.at wrote:
> 
> > In order to keep a 4.9 system current - do I need to use the
> > "standard-supfile" or "stable-supfile" with cvsup?
> 
> That depends on whether you want 4.9-STABLE (stable-supfile), which is
> the latest incarnation of the 4-STABLE branch, or whether you want
> 4.9-RELEASE-pX (standard-supfile) which is the 4.9-RELEASE system plus
> security patches only.
> ...
> 4-STABLE receives new functionality, upgrades to software and so
> forth.  4.9-RELEASE doesn't. 

Hi Matthew,

Thanks much for the hints. After going through the explanations of the
FreeBSD handbook ("difference between STABLE and CURRENT") one more
time, re-reading your email there are some questions remaining - maybe
you could comment on this just to make things clear:

When I installed 4.9 from the CD (originally .iso pulled down from
freebsd.org) this was 4.9-STABLE (i.e. 4.9-RELEASE as it was an
official release)?

When doing a CVS-upgrade on this installation with "stable-supfile" I
get any "feature-enhancements"/program upgrades in the 4.9 line plus
any bug fixes on 4.9?

But how - if at all - does "CURRENT" come in? Or does "CURRENT" wrt my
installed 4.9 only relate to 5.x?


(Sorry if these questions sound dumb, but I didn't find any
comprehensive explanation about the differences between
stable/current/release/standard)

Thanks much in advance for your help,
-ewald