Noob question ....

[William A. Mahaffey III]

On 10/15/14 18:36, Polytropon wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Oct 2014 18:32:45 -0500, William A. Mahaffey III wrote:
>>
>> As a card-carrying noob to FreeBSD, I have a question .... Recent posts
>> have referred to version 9.3-STABLE of FreeBSD .... My uname output
>> appears below, obviously labeled RELEASE, not STABLE .... How do I
>> 'upgrade' from 9.3-RELEASE to 9.3-STABLE ?
> By checking out the required source and rebuilding your
> kernel and operating system.
>
> https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/current-stable.html
>
> https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/synching.html
>
> https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/makeworld.html
>
> Also see the comment header of /usr/src/Makefile which
> provides a short description of the targets and the
> updating procedure.
>
> However, you can use freebsd-update to binarily track
> security changes for the -RELEASE branch, keeping your
> system current. Note that -STABLE is a development branch,
> and even though it's stable, there _might_ be problems
> with it. The most experimental branch is -CURRENT or -HEAD
> from which -STABLE is "distilled", and from that, -RELEASE
> is usually being created.


*Aaaaaaaaack* !!!! That clarifies an important misunderstanding for me 
.... I thought STABLE would be more/most stable, maybe a refinement on 
RELEASE .... Thx for the clarification.


Also, how do I get freebsd-update to track changes ? The man page (dated 
July 14 2010) was a bit sparse .... I would like to know if newer stuff 
is available, & I couldn't see how to perhaps inquire about that w/ 
freebsd-update .... Thx & TIA ....


>
>> [wam at kabini1, ~, 3:44:36pm] 404 % uname -a; date
>> FreeBSD kabini1.local 9.3-RELEASE FreeBSD 9.3-RELEASE #0 r268512: Thu
>> Jul 10 23:44:39 UTC 2014
>> root at snap.freebsd.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64
>> Wed Oct 15 18:28:06 CDT 2014
>> [wam at kabini1, ~, 6:28:06pm] 405 %
> That's quite current. I don't think using -STABLE improves
> your situation much - except of course you need very "bleeding
> edge" features which are not available for -RELEASE yet...


No, I am staying well away from bleeding edges these days, especially w/ 
this box (daily driver), quite new hardware notwithstanding (socket AM1 
Jaguar CPU & mbd, purchased last April from NewEgg on the day it was 1st 
released/available). Thx :-) ....


-- 

	William A. Mahaffey III

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

	"The M1 Garand is without doubt the finest implement of war
	 ever devised by man."
                            -- Gen. George S. Patton Jr.