Upgrading 7.1-PRERELEASE

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 07:52:11AM +0200, Leslie Jensen wrote:
>
>
> Jeremy Chadwick skrev:
>> On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 06:41:05AM +0200, Leslie Jensen wrote:
>>> Jeremy Chadwick skrev:
>>>> On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 06:24:56AM +0200, Leslie Jensen wrote:
>>>>> I'm running 7.1-PRERELEASE. Yesterday I csup'ed and upgraded as 
>>>>> I've  done several times in order to install 7.1-BETA2. 
>>>>> Everything went as it  should, but my system still says 
>>>>> 7.1-PRERELEASE. In my stable-supfile I  have "*default 
>>>>> release=cvs tag=RELENG_7".
>>>>>
>>>>> Can anyone tell me where I can make sure that my system upgrades to BETA-2?
>>>> You are essentially running BETA2, with even newer fixes since the BETA2
>>>> release.  You should stay with the RELENG_7 tag.
>>>>
>>> Thanks Jeremy
>>> I thought that the uname tag would change to "BETA-2"
>>
>> I sincerely do not know where "BETA2" (not "BETA-2") comes from.  It's
>> not defined anywhere in src/sys/conf/newvers.sh in CVS:
>
> I got it from here
> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2008-October/046037.html
> /Leslie

You've misunderstood what I said.  :-)

I want to know where the "BETA2" string actually came **from**, meaning
who or what idealised it and why.  It is not a CVS tag, and it's not
referred to anywhere other than the "here's the ISOs" mails that come
from Ken.

The problem is that this string generates confusion; you are not the
first person who has gotten confused by this (downloading version
labelled with XYZ and upon building world/kernel, seeing version ABC,
inducing an Email to a mailing list asking "I downloaded XYZ, but I'm
seeing string ABC.  Where is the tag for XYZ?  I want to follow it",
only to be told "XYZ is actually PRERELEASE").

In essence what I'm saying is we're inconsistent with the strings
we use for distributions of FreeBSD.  Users **barely** understand
the difference between -STABLE and -RELEASE, and only a select few
understand the difference between CVS tags RELENG_x and RELENG_x_y.

For distributions that are not STABLE or RELEASE, we need to stick with
a single string, and that string (IMHO) should be PRERELEASE-YYYYMMDD
(to signify the build date).

>> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/conf/newvers.sh
>>
>> To me, this means someone is hand-hacking the file before making ISO
>> releases.  The problem with this is there's no way to correlate what CVS
>> tag said string is based on; I have to assume it's RELENG_7.
>>
>> CC'ing Ken, who can probably explain where "BETA2" comes from, since I
>> believe he's the one who makes the builds.
>>
>> <opinion>
>> I really wish we'd name our not-yet-RELEASE-or-STABLE ISO releases as
>> FreeBSD x.y-PRERELEASE-YYYYMMDD, which would make more sense to users.
>> </opinion>

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |