Help!

[Anthony Atkielski]

Charlie Sorsby writes:

> Every time I turn round, someone is telling me that I should update
> to a more recent version of freeBSD.  Each time I try, I encounter
> nothing but trouble.

If the version you are currently running does what you require, there is
no reason for you to update, no matter what anyone says.

> I tried some time ago, updating to 4.5, the latest version for
> which I have a CDROM.  When I encountered problems and queried this
> list, I received a message to the effect that the installer should
> quit working after X years.  Perhaps that was tongue in cheek but
> it was singularly unhelpful.

Nobody suggested that you replace all your hardware?  Well, you were
lucky, then.  Newer versions of FreeBSD never have bugs; if they don't
work on a system that worked with an older version of FreeBSD, the only
possibility is that the hardware somehow failed while you were
installing the newer version.  I've been told this again and again when
I've had problems, but I obstinately refuse to believe it just because
someone says it is so.

> So, I continued to use 3.4 which, aside from the fact that I can't
> add anything new or update any ports or ... has stood me in good
> stead for years.

If it works, don't change it.  Don't listen to the upgrade fanatics who
constantly install the latest bleeding-edge releases of the OS simply
because they don't have anything better to do.  Never fix what isn't
broken.

> Finally getting tired of using netscape 4.76 -- I've been unsuccessful
> at finding any "modern" browser that I can install under 3.4 -- and
> having it crashed by "modern" web sites, I decided to try again.

Ah, that's different ... at least in that case you have a reason to
upgrade.

I daresay that lynx will probably run under 3.4, but it's not a very
exciting browser.

> I fetched the floppy images for 4.11 -- I have no interest in 5.x,
> 4.x is far enough removed from real BSD that I wouldn't go that
> route it I had a choice.

Where and what is "real BSD"?

> Within a very few minutes, the installer complained that it had run
> out of space on / -- why it would have tried to fetch everything to
> the root partition is beyond me but that's what it said.

For what it's worth, I have about 128 MB in use on / after a standard
install of 5.3, which is no doubt bigger than 4.x, but you may still be
getting close.  I put 2 GB on /, and 7% is in use.

-- 
Anthony