FreeBSD 4.x EoL

[Michael W. Oliver]

Colin,

Thanks for the verbose and reasoned explanation.  Since the email last
week, I have taken the opportunity to upgrade two machines, one here and
one remote (both with serial console) from 4.9->5.5->6.2PRE, and while I
can't say that I did it blindfolded, it wasn't too painful.  The upgrade
instructions at...

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.3R/migration-guide.html

...were as close to perfect as could be (and for those who might ask me
for a step-by-step howto, look to the above URL).  A few things that I
should mention to others trying this are...

0. Backup, and then check your backups!

1. Be prepared to spend a lot of time in single-user mode, especially
for the 4->5 step, because there is a LOT for mergemaster to do.  The
step from 5->6 is not nearly as painful.  I didn't try to do the
installworld and mergemaster in multiuser, and if you do then have a
bigger set than I do.

2. Trust the migration guide when it says to use a default kernel
configuration file unless you are 100% prepared to reap what you sow.

3. Be prepared to spend a lot of time (depending on the speed of your
machines) rebuilding all of your ports.  Don't skimp on this step.

4. On one of my machines (the local one, thank God!), I started getting
weird pauses and bus errors when trying to rebuild my ports, and then
noticed that the acpi.ko wasn't being loaded at boot.  Turns out that I
had disabled ACPI in the BIOS back when the machine was originally built
for v4.  Since switching on ACPI in the BIOS, those issues have totally
cleared.

All in all, it has been a good experience.  I do sympathize with the
folks who clamor for the death of v5 before v4, because v4 continues to
be rock-solid stable for UP machines.  Time will tell if v6 answers the
shortcomings of v5 when compared to v4.  Either way, the benefits of
using FreeBSD far outweigh the costs, so I thank you and the rest of the
development community.

-- 
Mike Oliver, KI4OFU
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