preparing for an upgrade

[andrew clarke]

On Tue 2008-11-18 16:47:20 UTC-0700, Kelly Martin (kellymartin at gmail.com) wrote:

> With the release of FreeBSD 6.4 imminent, I'd like to prepare for an
> upgrade from FreeBSD 6.2 -> 6.4.

Have you considered using freebsd-update?  From memory, it supports 6.2.

> Please excuse my ignorance but in my mind here's what I plan to do
> when it's available:
> 
> 1. install / run the upgrade script using CD-ROM media to a 6.4
> GENERIC kernel, reboot
> 2. customize the kernel to my hardware (like I did in 6.2), reboot
> 3. portsnap fetch update (to get the latest ports tree for 6.4)
> 4. portupgrade -ai (to upgrade any outdated ports)

I don't think there will be any need to rebuild your ports after
upgrading from 6.2 to 6.4.  (The situation is different if you were
going from 6.2 to 7.1 though.)

> Will this work?
> 
> I'm a little confused about different versions of the ports tree. What
> I mean is, I keep updating my FreeBSD 6.2 ports tree and have never
> had any problems... it just works. I'm assuming the 6.4 ports tree is
> a little different and specific to 6.4?

No, there is only one ports tree shared between all FreeBSD versions.
If you already have an updated ports tree with a 6.2 installation, you
can keep using that with 6.4 (or even 7.x).