Binary upgrade from legacy version + ports

[Matthew Seaman]

Svein Halvor Halvorsen wrote:

> The 6.1 system seem to be running 7.0-p2 now, though. Thanks!
> It is still upgrading ports. Fortunately this box does nothing
> important, and is just my personal playground. If something gets
> messed up, noe problem. I'm trying to upgrade the ports binary as
> well, using "portupgrade -a -PP", and it seems to get the packages
> from RELEASE, not the latest versions that are in the ports tree.
> But as long as all ports use the same consistent set, I'm pretty
> sure it will work out nicely. My local ports tree will be out of
> sync, though, which might cause problems later?

Yes, this will work in the sense that the software will all be
functional.  If you're installing the RELEASE packages, you won't
get any security related fixes that have gone into the ports since 
7.0-RELEASE came out.  Try running 'portaudit -Fda' and see what it
shows up.

You should still be able to update using packages from the FTP servers
though -- the process of updating packages runs pretty frequently, but
it does take a while to chew through all of the updates so what's on the
FTP servers is usually some days adrift of the state of the ports tree
in CVS.  But really no more than that.

> Is there a problem using the prebuilt packages from STABLE on a
> RELEASE box? If I want to run RELEASE, and still use the latest
> packages? The ABI is consistent between STABLE and RELEASE, right?

Nope.  All 7.x releases should be ABI compatible -- including STABLE
and RELEASE.  So long as you get the inter-package dependencies right
everything should work fine.  I know the ABI promise guarantees that
anything compiled on an earlier 7.x version will continue to run on a
later one, and I believe it also now requires programs compiled on a
later 7.x system to run on an earlier one.

In any case, the move to versioned symbols makes the whole problem
pretty much go away.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                   7 Priory Courtyard
                                                  Flat 3
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey     Ramsgate
                                                  Kent, CT11 9PW

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