4.11-STABLE

[Erik Trulsson]

On Thu, Mar 31, 2005 at 04:26:01PM +0200, dick hoogendijk wrote:
> Now that FreeBSD-4.11 is deprecated, it will be the last release from
> the 4.xx series, what is it about RELENG-4 (the 4.11-STABLE)? This build
> will be /newer/ than 4.11R and always will be. Will it be safe to use?
> What about security updates? Or will it be safer to stick with 4.11R and
> update the sources to RELENG-4_11?
> 
> What are the benefits of using 4.11-stable if it's deprecated? Are there
> any?

I don't know if "deprecated" is the word I would use about RELENG_4
(aka 4-STABLE.)  It is true that no new releases planned from that
branch, and since most developers have switched over to RELENG_5 (or
-CURRENT) there is little new development happening for 4.x.

There is still the occasional commit going in to the RELENG_4 branch
but mostly bugfixes and few if any new features (and certainly not
anything that is supposed to disrupt existing configurations.)
I would expect new commits to trickle in slowly to RELENG_4 for another
2-3 years or so until it is completely abandoned. (The latest commit to
RELENG_3 happened in Dec. 2003 - two and half years after the last 3.x
release.)

Since the commit rate has gone down considerably for 4.x since 5.x was
declared as -STABLE, there is really very little difference between
RELENG_4 and 4.11-RELEASE at this point in time, but there is some.

The advantage of running RELENG_4 instead of RELENG_4_11 is that you
will get a some extra bugfixes and possibly one or two minor new
features. The disadvantage is of course that some of those bugfixes may
inadvartently introduce new bugs that have yet been detected.

Security updates will be applied to RELENG_4 as well as to RELENG_4_11
at least until 31 Jan. 2007.

Personally I would certainly choose RELENG_4 over RELENG_4_11, but if
you are extremely cautious (and have not run into any of the bugs fixed
in RELENG_4 but not in RELENG_4_11) you might prefer RELENG_4_11.


For a new installation I would recommend the upcoming 5.4-RELEASE, but
for systems that already have 4.x installed and are happy with it might
make sense to stick with 4.x for a while longer.
(There are also some systems where 4.x works but 5.x does not - and
vice versa.  That 5.x is somewhat more resource hungry than 4.x could
also be a consideration very low-end systems (here defined as '486 or
slower and 32MB RAM or less.))


-- 
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
ertr1013 at student.uu.se