Do I upgrade from 5.x to anything ?

[Matthew Seaman]

On Sun, Sep 26, 2004 at 09:40:47PM -0400, bsdfsse wrote:

> I have been running 4.10-Stable for about 3 weeks, and one of my 
> computers doesn't work with it.  Apparently FreeBSD 4.x doesn't like the 
>  Asus motherboard's HD controller, and I constantly get disk errors. 
> HOWEVER, 5.x seems to work fine.

The other cunning way to get round that problem is to install, say, a
SCSI controller and matching harddrive.  A bit expensive, unless
you've got some spare kit lying around.
 
> My big machine has an Asus motherboard, 160GB, and 2 x 200GB Maxtor 
> drives.  It also has a new 400w power supply, and a Celeron chip.  I 
> basically replaced every part of the machine trying to get to 4.x to 
> work, then gave up and am trying to run 5.x.
> 
> Is there something I should be doing after I install 5.x-Release to get 
> the latest software?  On 4.x I would install "cvsup" and 
> "cvsup-without-gui", then running "cvs -g -L 2 stable-supfile", and 
> finally doing a make buildworld, etc, etc.  I have no idea what my 
> options are on 5.x

First of all, I'd start by installing one of the 5.3-BETA releases --
there have been some significant changes which mean that upgrading
from 5.2.1-RELEASE or earlier to 5.3-RELEASE/BETA is not as simple as
it might be.

You can certainly adopt exactly the same strategy of updating to the
latest -STABLE using 5.x since RELENG_5 was branched earlier this
month.  At the moment it gives you an OS called 5.3-BETA6 and you can
track it's development all the way up to 5.3-RELEASE -- at which point
you could switch to tracking RELENG_5_3 with minimal effort, should
you so desire.
 
> I heard 5.x-Stable is coming out in October, so does that mean you can't 
> really update 5.x until October?  I installed the 5.3-Beta CD, but the 
> stable-supfile looks like it will try to get the 4.x stable code.  I 
> also did not really want to run "current" since this machine is supposed 
> to be my home server.

Yes -- try using a supfile like this:

    *default host=CHANGE_THIS.FreeBSD.org
    *default base=/var/db
    *default prefix=/usr
    *default release=cvs tag=RELENG_5
    *default delete use-rel-suffix
    *default compress
    src-all

Note that under 5.x, what was /usr/sup has been moved to /var/db/sup,
a location far more in accord with hier(7) than previously.  It's a
shame that the committer who made that change didn't take the
opportunity to change the default tag to 'RELENG_5' in the same file.
 
> I mostly want my ports up to date, so I can run Thunderbird, Firefox, 
> etc (if they are available on 5.x).

Ports should *mostly* work just fine.  All of the popular ports like
FireFox and Thunderbird will have been fixed, if any fixing was
necessary, in very short order.  Since the ports freeze before
5.3-RELEASE the portmgr@ team has been working very hard to ensure
that the maximum possible number of ports will compile and run under
5.x -- mostly that involves fixing C++ code that doesn't adhere to the
stricter standards required by gcc-3.4.x
 
> Maybe I should make my working 4.x box my "server", and make my 
> nonworking machine a 5.x "desktop".
> 
> My original plan was to run 4.x on all my home boxen, then load 5.x when 
> it got to around 5.3.1 - except now my big box wont run 4.x.  So I am 
> forced to load 5.x now, or just let the machine sit for a month.

That depends entirely on how many people are depending on your systems
and how much time and money is at risk should your machine go down.
If it's just you and your friends/family using the thing, then I'd say
stick with 5.3-BETA, and use cvsup+buildworld to update once the
release comes out.
 
> Another option is to try and use the help on the mail lists to figure 
> out why 4.x wont run on my big box.  I tried so many things I don't 
> really want to think about it anymore, lol.  The Asus motherboard is a 
> replacement for another one that died while initially trying to install 
> 4.x I literally replaced everything inside the case: power supply, 
> motherboard, chip, drive controller, RAM, HD's, cables, CDR's, cables. 
> The current error is the hardware error "Signal 11".  %-(

Did you replace the PSU? A flakey power supply can make the system
crash in very suspicious ways, although I don't think that even
running 5.x could compensate for an incorrect voltage input...

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
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