alternative method for make / install world --- ?

[Garance A Drosehn]

At 4:14 AM -0400 6/24/04, epilogue at allstream.net wrote:
>hello all,
>
>I have recently been mulling over an article which proposes
>an abridged set of steps for updating the system.
>
>-----------
>http://www.bsdnews.org/03/bsd_update.php
>
>alias rebuild   'cd /usr/src && make update && make world &&
>                  make kernel && mergemaster'
>-----------
>
>in a nutshell, the author proposes the following steps:
>
>1) rebuild
>2) answer the mergemaster prompts
>3) reboot
>4) all done

We have a list of steps which we believe to be reliable.  We have
absolutely no reason to add in steps "just to annoy you".  We are
just as eager to have a quick system rebuild as anyone else would
be.  You can often get away with skipping some of those steps, but
if you DO skip them, then YOU are responsible when something does
go wrong.  And sooner or later, it will go wrong.  You can bet on
it.  You should expect it.  By that I mean, *when* something does
go wrong, then you should immediately suspect that the problem is
due to your procedure.  You should not "forget" that you have
refused to follow the recommended procedure, and you should not
come yelling at anyone else because "they broke your system".

In the case of this author, he is tracking the 4.x-stable branch.

At this point in time, that branch sees very very little activity,
and because of that his strategy has probably worked quite well
for him.  However, it will not work as well on the -current branch.
And very soon we will be moving to 5.3-stable as "the stable
branch", and after we do then his strategy is much more likely to
run into serious problems.  And when it does, it will be you with
the broken system, and it may be that you will be the only one
who will be able to fix whatever was broken.

Think if it this way.  We have a list of steps that we document.
If you want to use some alternate list, then what makes you think
we will test *our* changes with *your* alternate strategy?  We
will not.  Sooner or later, something will break.  On the one
hand we will feel bad for you, but on the other hand we can not
help you if you refuse to follow the steps that we have found to
be the most reliable.

Yes, it is tempting to take shortcuts.  But sooner or later you
will be burned by taking them.

-- 
Garance Alistair Drosehn     =      gad at gilead.netel.rpi.edu
Senior Systems Programmer               or   gad at FreeBSD.org
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;             Troy, NY;  USA