Building from source

[Janos Dohanics]

On Tue, 5 Jan 2021 18:18:58 +0000
Matthew Seaman <matthew at FreeBSD.org> wrote:

Thank you all for replying.

> On 04/01/2021 19:41, Janos Dohanics wrote:
> 
> > However, https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/makeworld.html does
> > not mention single user mode.
> 
> That documentation is in need of updating, since the switch of the
> src repo from SVN to git last month.  It also still recommends
> mergemaster which is (or will soon be) deprecated in HEAD and gone in
> FreeBSD-13 -- you should use etcupdate instead.

I have never used etcupdate(8) and only now have glanced through the
man page. Looks like a lot more complicated beast than mergemaster(8)
which has been very sufficient for my modest needs.

> Having said that, aside from the way you checkout the sources, and
> the mergester vs etcupdate thing, the procedure in the current
> version of the handbook is correct.

A good tutorial on etcupdate would be great.

> > Should I assume that these days best practice allows rebuilding
> > world/kernel without needing to boot into single user mode?
> 
> It hasn't actually been necessary to buildworld or buildkernel in
> single user mode for as long as I've been doing that, which is as far
> back as FreeBSD-3.2.  Nor do you need to be in single user mode to do
> either the installkernel or installworld steps -- although as shown,
> it can be good idea to reboot to a new kernel before upgrading to
> your new world.  Even that isn't entirely necessary if you're
> tracking one of the -RELEASE or -STABLE branches and just using the
> GENERIC kernel.

That's very convenient. And being a creature of habit, makes me also a
bit nostalgic...

> Although if you do happen to be running on a ZFS machine, then the 
> recommended way to upgrade is to use the boot environments feature. 
> There's plenty of articles on the net about how to do that, or feel
> free to ask here if this is something relevant to you.

Pointers to good tutorials are always welcome!

-- 
Janos Dohanics