Upgrading FreeBSD to a new release

[Roman Kennke]

Am Mo, den 07.06.2004 schrieb Kent Stewart um 0:03:
> On Sunday 06 June 2004 02:55 pm, Roman Kennke wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > > > > One thing, that is making me _not_ using FreeBSD is, that I see
> > > > > no way to easily upgrade from, say 5.1 to 5.2 (just an
> > > > > example),
> >
> > ..
> >
> > > > Apart from that i updated my systems many times, without being in
> > > > single user mode, with an ssh connection.
> > >
> > > This doesn't work on the upgrade to 5.2 from 5.1. You have to boot
> > > into single user mode to do the installworld. You have incompatible
> > > features at this upgrade.
> >
> > Exactly these kinds of hassles I don't want. I am wondering - FreeBSD
> > has built such a nice thing like the ports system. It's a work of
> > genius. Only that the install/upgrade process of the system itself is
> > completely different (and not very convenient IMO). Is it not
> > possible to 'port' the System stuff into the ports system (or a
> > different ports system, say, the 'system ports' or something like
> > that). Just an idea.
> >
> > Ok, are there other ways? Isn't there a script, which places the new
> > archives over the old ones, and removes the stuff, that's left from
> > the old system? Or is this a too-difficult task?
> >
> 
> The problem with 5.1 > 5.2 is called statfs. See, /usr/src/UPDATING. It 
> will run with a new kernel and not the old kernel. If you do an 
> installworld before you do an installkernel, you have to use the fixit 
> CD to fix it. For a while, they thought you had to do a clean install. 

Ugly. I am not too familiar with the internals of FreeBSD. But I really
think, that in the long run, FreeBSD must have a more clever software
managment for the system stuff. Something like 'apt-get dist-upgrade'
comes to mind, or 'emerge -Ud world'. It should be possible to track
what changes from one point release to the next one, and do most of the
upgrade stuff automatically (excluding most configuration) and without a
CD.
 Rebuilding the ports tree stuff after the upgrade is not the problem
(because this is already managed in a very good way).

All I want is not reinstalling the system after every few releases. The
FreeBSD team should care about an possibility to easily upgrade from at
least one point release to another. Only my suggestion.

Best regards, Roman

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Dies ist ein digital signierter Nachrichtenteil
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/attachments/20040607/ec34790a/attachment.bin