freebsd-update: fale?

[Joe Altman]

On Thu, Jan 03, 2013 at 03:50:44PM +0100, Martin Laabs wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 01/02/13 01:21, Joe Altman wrote:
> > Greetings, list. I have the following error; though I can load
> > update5.FreeBSD.org in a browser:
> > [...]
> 
> maybe you use a release that is not supported by freebsd-update. Run
> "uname -r" an compare the release with that you see when looking at
> http://update4.freebsd.org/
>
> If it is not there you can not use freebsd-update.

Yes; I realized that after I revisited the man page and handbook;
somehow I managed to miss that initially. I'm currently using
9.1-PRERELEASE.


Now I am left to wonder how that state will last; ISTM that eventually
9.1 will be supported by freebsd-update but I cannot tell when that
might happen. Given that CVSUP is going away soon, I can't see
reinstalling it just for this unnecessary upgrade.

Since I appear to be stuck between things, I have three questions:

1) Is there any way to guesstimate how long until 9.1 is supported by
   freebsd-update?

2) Am I correct in assuming that there is no good reason (security
   concerns, for instance) to update right now? I seem to have no
   problems with my system; it runs fine.

3) Does freebsd-update really require at least a Gig of space in /var
   for a major or minor upgrade? If so, it looks like I may as well
   reinstall the OS, since I never anticipated needing that much in
   /var. At this point, given the amount of 'portupgrade -fr' I'll need
   to do, it might consume less time to start from scratch.


Thanks for the followup, and best regards,

Joe