Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

[Chris Rees]

On 2 June 2012 10:42, Erich Dollansky <erich at alogreentechnologies.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 02 June 2012 AM 9:14:28 Chris Rees wrote:
>> On Jun 2, 2012 4:04 AM, "Erich Dollansky" <erich at alogreentechnologies.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > But I have to mention one disadvantage. The ports are in no way linked to
>> the releases. This leads to situations in which a small change in a basic
>> library will result in a complete update of the installed ports. I
>> expressed this already many time here. It would be of advantage if the
>> ports tree would also have tags like the base system itself.
>> >
>>
>> Unfortunately this is a massive amount of extra work - we only just keep up
>> with updates as it is.
>
> I do not think so. At least not for the first step as I see it. Just make snapshots of the ports tree when the release comes out. These snapshots are with the releases anyway.
>
> What I did was very simple. I got the ports tree that comes with the release and installed the system back to the release status. Ok, it was some work for me - maybe not for others - to find this tree.
>
> A simple link could help here.
>
> I do not know if this is just an opinion which is too optimistic.
>
> What I know is that all the security fixes which appeared since the release are not in there. If I have the choice between three days or more of compiling and known security holes, I will take the security holes, make the client happy and upgrade after the work for the client is finished.
>
> I would not expect that FreeBSD will provide more than this.

Then you already have all you need-- RELEASEs use packages compiled at
time of release if you use pkg_add -r, and the ports tree is tagged at
release if you wish to get a 'snapshot'.

Note that you will not get any official support if you choose to use a
tagged tree :)

Chris