annoying problems after upgrading to 6.2-RELEASE

[Scott Bennett]

     I've encountered three annoying problems since doing the upgrade from
6.1-RELEASE to 6.2-RELEASE using the upgrade option when booting from the
installation CD.  This is on a Dell Inspiron XPS (3.4 GHz P4 w/HTT enabled
and 1 GB of memory).

	1) The ports and packages subsystems are as fragile as ever (no big
	   surprise).  I was able to add packages for less than a day before
	   it broke.  Sometimes I can still add or delete a package, but
	   in at least one case, I can't because pkg_add says that an earlier
	   version of the package is already installed, while an attempt to
	   remove the earlier version using pkg_delete gets a message saying
	   that no such package is installed.  Apparently, pkg_add and
	   pkg_delete do not refer to the same indicators of whether a
	   particular package is actually installed.  Attempting to build ports
	   fails while trying to build dependency ports, which was what led
	   to attempt to remove libtool and then add the newer version.  I'll
	   try to get a PR together and submitted soon.

	2) I had been eagerly awaiting the new version of snd_emu10k1, which
	   is supposed to contain support for the Soundblaster Audigy 2 cards,
	   and I was hoping that my Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS PCMCIA card
	   might be included in that support.  Last night I finally added
	   snd_driver_load="YES" to /boot/loader.conf and rebooted.  It looked
	   good until it correctly identifed the card, at which point it hung.
	   After some delay, the machine *powered itself down*.  Trying to
	   restart it failed repeatedly before it could complete the hardware
	   initialization prior to booting, and it powered itself down each
	   time, sometimes turning on the battery light briefly as it did so.
	   Eventually, fearing hardware damage, I removed the PCMCIA card,
	   after which I was able to boot the installation CD again in order
	   to remove the line from /boot/loader.conf.  Unfortunately, the
	   6.2-RELEASE installation CD does not allow me to mount the hard
	   drive's root file system onto /mnt in order to change the hard
	   drive's /boot/loader.conf file the way the 6.1-RELEASE CD did.
	   I next tried booting from the hard drive, selecting safe mode--
	   which may not have mattered anyway--I think the key was removing
	   the sound card, and got to where I could edit the file.  Rebooting
	   after that proceeded uneventfully.  Because of the computer's
	   thoroughly bizarre response to having the new snd_emu10k1 driver
	   active when the sound card was present, I am reluctant to try this
	   again to document it well enough to submit a PR.  I haven't yet
	   tried the $100 sound card again under Windows XP to find out whether
	   it still works. 8-|

	3) I use wmaker as a window manager for X.  Since the 6.2-RELEASE
	   upgrade, I seem no longer able to cut/copy + paste anything except
	   when doing the operation entirely inside Firefox windows.  I can
	   still select the text I want to copy, but I am unable to paste it
	   into other windows (e.g., Putty, xterm) or even into the same
	   window.

     The first two I don't expect to be able to do anything about, other than
maybe submitting a PR for the first one, but perhaps someone can show me a
way to fix the third one.  Any help would be appreciated.
     Thanks muchly in advance.


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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* Internet:       bennett at cs.niu.edu                              *
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