How do YOU stay up to date?

[Andrew L. Gould]

On Wednesday 14 January 2004 11:36 pm, Duane Winner wrote:
> Thanks for the reply, which was very helpful.
>
> Could you just clarify one thing for me? On your last point regarding
> 'SECURITY - STABLE - CURRENT', my understanding up to now has been that
> this applies to the FreeBSD 'src' tree only, but not to the ports
> collection. Am I correct?
>
> If we are running 4.9-RELEASE, and cvsuping using 'RELENG_4_9', my
> assumption is that we'll rarely have to do a 'buildworld' or recompile
> the kernel, correct?

It's not that you'll "have" to recompile less frequently; but when you 
**choose** to recompile, fewer changes will be made using RELENG_4_9 
(SECURITY) than RELENG_4 (STABLE).

> But ports don't fall under the same tracking mechanism, correct?
> (I have a line 'ports-all tag=.' in my supfile because I read that there
> are no release tags for ports).

I think you're correct here; but you could choose not to cvsup the ports.

>
> I just want to make sure I understand all of this correctly.
>
> Thanks again,
> Duane
>
> On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 23:27, Andrew L. Gould wrote:
> > On Wednesday 14 January 2004 10:11 pm, Duane Winner wrote:
> > > Hello all again,
> > >
> > > I'm finally getting my arms around FreeBSD and the updating processes
> > > and tools. But I'm still trying to come up with good
> > > habits/methods/instructions for updating routines for both myself and
> > > my colleagues who also want to switch to FreeBSD.
> > >
> > > I now understand how to use cvsup to keep my src and ports tree
> > > current. I know how to use pkg_add -r to install new sotware, or go
> > > into /usr/ports/whatever to make install. I know how to do portupgrade
> > > to upgrade my installed ports, how to pkg_version -v to see what's out
> > > of date with my tree, and how to cronjob cvsup to keep my trees
> > > current. (I still need to play more with make world and whatnot)
> > >
> > > But what do you all out there in BSD land do to stay current as a
> > > practice? I'm looking at this on two fronts: FreeBSD on our laptops
> > > (There will be at least 3 of us with T23's, and I also plan on
> > > migrating most, if not all of my servers from Linux to FreeBSD).
> > >
> > > One thing that concerns me, at least on the laptops, is the amount of
> > > time spent compiling new software as it is release, seeing as how we
> > > will be running x, gnome and Yahweh knows what else....I've already
> > > spent a great deal of time recompiling all this stuff to get current.
> > > (granted, I'm still experimenting, blowing my machine away, starting
> > > over, to both learn and write up instructions for the other guys, so
> > > I'm repeating the pains).
> > >
> > > How is this going to affect us longterm with staying current if we are
> > > constantly getting new source and having to recompile? One of my
> > > colleagues has proposed just using packages as much as possible. But
> > > although it seems simple enough to to go "pkg_add -r gnome2", what
> > > about updating? I mean, after installing the package, "pkg_version -v"
> > > many packages are listed as out of date with my current ports tree. So
> > > how to update short of doing a "portupgrade -Pa" and waiting a few or
> > > several hours?
> >
> > The existence of newer source code is not, in and of itself,
> > justification for an upgrade.  Each day brings new source code.  It is up
> > to the administrator to monitor new features, bug fixes and security
> > issues to determine when an upgrade is warranted.
> >
> > Also, keep in mind:
> >
> > 1. "portupgrade -rR <port name>" will upgrade the specified port, its
> > dependencies and any ports that depend upon the specified port.  You
> > don't have to update all ports at once to keep port dependencies in sync.
> >
> > 2. Packages installed with pkg_add, that have associated ports, can be
> > upgraded using portupgrade.
> >
> > 3. Unless your use of computers demands cutting or bleeding edge code,
> > tracking SECURITY may meet your needs as well or better than STABLE or
> > CURRENT.
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Andrew Gould
> >
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