upgrade 7.2 overwrites partitions

[Jonathan McKeown]

On Wednesday 05 August 2009 15:49:38 PJ wrote:
> Polytropon wrote:
> > On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:58:58 -0400, PJ <af.gourmet at videotron.ca> wrote:
> >> Could somone explain to me why an upgrade from sysinstall would
> >> overwrite partitions; especially when the instructions indicate that
> >> files will not be overwritten?
> >
> > I'm not sure how to explain. It's possible that sysinstall recreated
> > the slices and paritions, or at least the partitions were marked as
> > to be formatted ("Y" after the file system type in the partition
> > editor).
> >
> > Because I've never used the "Upgrade" functionality of sysinstall,
> > I'm not even sure what it is supposed to do.
>
> Well, whatever it was it sure screwed up my system

You screwed up your system. Possibly that started when you tried to use 
freebsd-update with a non-GENERIC kernel, but you then thrashed around, 
apparently ignoring most of the help you were offered on this list and 
getting into more and more trouble, while never explaining exactly what you 
were doing. This is the textbook example of how not to report a problem:

> the whole machine became un bootable when some xcb or something like
> that could not be loaded because of some problem with a python port.

Even so, several people put time and effort into helping you, and suggesting 
ways you could reach a quicker solution when you made it clear what your 
personal effort limit was.

> Due to diligence and a great deal of my time, I managed to save all the
> files that were on the system and recovered the XP disks so everything
> can now be re-installed and used.

Actually, it was also a great deal of time donated by other busy people around 
the world.

> The only "victim" in the end is FreeBSD as I will never touch it again.
> It has been going downhill since way back; but I think I just preferred
> to stay with my illusions and tolerated the waste of time and effort
> reconfiguring, searching for answers and reinstalling, rebooting and the
> whole shebang under the aura of "learning". So learn I did. Don't touch
> it; it sucks.
> There are other systems better than FBSD, so g'bye all. >:o :-P

``I can't use it, therefore it's rubbish''. That's fine, no-one forced you to 
use FreeBSD in the first place and I doubt anyone minds that you don't want 
to use it any more.

Personally, I do think it's a pity, because FreeBSD (in my experience, since 
FreeBSD 4.5) is stable, easy to use (once you have the basic Unix concepts on 
board), and astonishingly well-documented. It's also supported by one of the 
friendliest and most knowledgeable communities I know.

I don't recognise FreeBSD or its user community in your description and I hope 
your tirade, on an extremely publically archived mailing list, doesn't put 
other people off trying it.

Having said all that, I wish you well and I hope you find a system which suits 
you better than the one you have trashed.

Jonathan