Upgrading FreeBSD Questions

[security]

   Bruce Burden wrote:

On Mon, Oct 29, 2007 at 04:25:18PM -0700, Jason Slack wrote:
  

I want to try version 7 as it has items of interest to me, but I am not one
to continually wipe and reload my machine, can you upgrade from the test
releases of 7 available now to the final release when ready? Or do you have
to wipe?

    

        From ports, you install "cvsup" and you can keep your ports
    and OS source up to date.

        The last time a full install was preferred was going from
    the 5.x release to 6.x, I believe, due to differences in GCC 3.x
    and GCC 4.x. So, it rarely happens.

                                                        Bruce
  

   Actually there was a 5.5-6.x upgrade path.  I took it.  The last
   re-install jump was 4->5 since the ODS changed with UFS2.  Even there,
   you could stay with the old format, but you didn't get things like
   disk snapshots.  Major version upgrades have typically been more time
   consuming than painful depending on the features you used (although
   early versions of 5.x had a higher pain ratio).  Minor version point
   releases are usually even less so.  6.x has been relatively pain free
   for me, and reputedly 7.x is even smoother.
   jim