Degrade, upgrade

[Marton Kenyeres]

On Thursday 22 July 2004 15:06, Kovács Péter wrote:
> Hello guys,

Hi!
>
> I have a system running FreeBSD 5.2.1 and want to degrade it
> to FreeBSD 4.10 (because the program I want to use only runs
> and supported on that platform) without reinstalling the system.
> Is it enough to cvsup to the RELENG_4 branch and recompile
> the system?
> Should I recompile all the programs that were previously
> compiled in the FreeBSD 5 environment?

In most cases it's guaranteed to _NOT_ work and render your system unusable 
because the UFS2 filesystem (which is the default in the 5.x branch) is not 
supported under 4.x. However you can use most software written for FreeBSD 
4.x if you install the misc/compat4x port.

>
> I would also like to know how this works backwards (which is
> the common way), so to upgrade from 4 to branch 5. Is there
> some kind of tutorial for this?

Yes, it's possible, however for most users the easyest and safest way is to 
backup valueable data, and do a fresh install. This way you can take 
advantage of all the features of the new filesystem. If you must do a source 
update for some reason, the upgrade process is described in detail in 
src/UPDATING.

>
> Thanks,
> P.

cheers,
m.
-- 
Marton Kenyeres - mkenyeres at konvergencia.hu
KVG Konvergencia Kft.