FreeBSD 9.1-PRERELEASE

[David Wolfskill]

[-questions@, as I'm not subscribed to it, and I don't see value in
cross-posting this message -- dhw]

On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 10:53:23AM +0100, Jack Raats wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> In this mailinglist I'm reading a lot about problems (re)compiling the system.

Well, I suspect that even if a small number of those of us who rebuild
the system without problems were to post each time we did so, there
would be a fair number of complaints from all of the noise. :-}

> At this moment I'm running:
> "FreeBSD 9.1-PRERELEASE (ORAC) #0 r244047: Sun Dec  9 15:33:19 CET 2012" without problems.

Good.

> Is it save to recompile the system with all patches?
> ...

OK; now I'm a bit confused.

The version string you cite ("FreeBSD 9.1-PRERELEASE (ORAC) #0 r244047")
indicates that you have no modifications to the source tree -- so I'm
unclear on what "patches" you are referencing.

I have been tracking the stable/9 branch of FreeBSD (updating &
rebuilding daily) on my laptop, then using it for my day-to-day
activities.  I have had very few problems with stable/9 -- I think there
may have been as many as 3 times that I had trouble rebuilding since
May.

For reference, the most recent "uname -a" outputs for me are:

FreeBSD g1-227.catwhisker.org 9.1-PRERELEASE FreeBSD 9.1-PRERELEASE #329  r244676M/244676: Tue Dec 25 05:04:52 PST 2012     root at g1-227.catwhisker.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/CANARY  i386

FreeBSD g1-227.catwhisker.org 9.1-PRERELEASE FreeBSD 9.1-PRERELEASE #330  r244712M/244731: Thu Dec 27 04:24:05 PST 2012     root at g1-227.catwhisker.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/CANARY  i386

(Note that while I did rebuild yesterday (Wed 26 Dec), the uname output
was unchanged, as the only changes in the sources was to "userland" (vs.
the kernel).)

Finally, note that stable/9 is a *development* branch of FreeBSD;
as such, it gets updated often; the "safety" of rebuilding is
difficult to estimate absent knowledge of both your environment and
the point to which you are considering updating.  The developers
try to avoid breaking things (and that avoidance is much eaasier
with SVN, vs. CVS (IMO)), but software development is fundamentally
a human activity, and mistakes do happen from time to time.

If that's a concern, I suggest that you try such an update on a system
that is less critical than most, but which you are able to subject to
significant testing.  If that works for you, you might consider upgrading
somewhat more-critical systems to the same point.

Peace,
david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill				david at catwhisker.org
Taliban: Evil men with guns afraid of truth from a 14-year old girl.

See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key.
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