New user confused by need to do huge upgrade

[Erik Trulsson]

On Mon, Nov 07, 2005 at 11:54:37PM +0000, Alistair wrote:
> Hello, All
> 
> I am a user of Linux for many years (and an aged BSD sysadmin from
> 1985-1989), but laterly mainly use Gentoo.  FreeBSD seemed to be a good
> alternative, so I get the 6.0 release a few days after it was released.
> 
> Being a Gentoo person, I like the ports system, but with limited time on
> my hands, I also like the compiled packages.  I can get a working system
> from packages then compile my own ports as need or want be.  Or so I
> thought.
> 
> I installed from two CDs, and got a working KDE system.  Now, I want to
> do Firefox from ports with my own make.conf for P4 optimisation.  Good!
>  So, I sync with the sources using cvsup (just like emerge --sync)
> change to the Firefox ports directory, type "make" and enter dependency
> hell like has never been known before.  Everything that depends upon
> GTK2 must be updated before Firefox can be compiled!
> 
> I thought that FreeBSD would be more stable than Gentoo and Linux
> distros in general.  I now find that there is the most major release
> step (5.4 to 6.0) and within a matter of a few days later, both Gnome
> and KDE are subject to huge updates that require many hours (or maybe
> days - it's not done yet) of CPU time.
> 
> Maybe I am missing something.  However, I just cannot see why this is
> right. What I thought that FreeBSD would give me that Gentoo did not is
> a coherent system within which deveopment was co-ordinated. Instead, I
> seem to find the opposite.  The core group can offer a major release of
> the OS, while missing the fact that two hugely important development
> groups are just days off their own major releases.

There was not a lack of communication.  The updates to Gnome and KDE were
intentionally delayed to happen *after* 6.0 was out.  The reason for this is
simply that they were not ready in time to make it into 6.0.
The FreeBSD project has a policy of not allowing major changes to the ports
tree while in the process of preparing for a new release.  This is to
make sure that the ports tree is in a "known good" state when the release
happens.  

The Gnome and KDE teams could probably have updated their ports before 6.0
was released, but at that time the ports tree was frozen in preparation for
the release.  After 6.0 was out and the freeze was lifted, the ports were
updated.

Think of it this way: Do you really want binary packages that are brand new
and almost untested to be included in the release, or do you want slightly
older but well-tested programs to be included?  The FreeBSD project has
chosen the latter policy, which means that the Gnome and KDE updates did not
make it into 6.0.


A pattern that has been true for most FreeBSD releases is that in the days
before the source/ports tree is frozen in preparation for a new release
there is a flurry of last-minute commits to make sure they get into the
release.  Then after the release is out, and the freeze is lifted, there is
a new flurry of commits when all the changes that have been pent up during
the freeze are finally allowed into the tree.



> 
> Maybe there is a level of sanity I am missing as a newcomer to BSD, but
> I would really like someone to tell me where to find it so that I can
> stop having to use this bloody Windows laptop to post here ;-)



-- 
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
ertr1013 at student.uu.se