Date: Thu, 09 May 1996 08:22:19 +0100 From: "Gary Palmer" <gpalmer@FreeBSD.ORG> To: Parag Chhibber <pchhibbe@attila.stevens-tech.edu> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Different versions of FreeBSD Message-ID: <16220.831626539@palmer.demon.co.uk> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 08 May 1996 20:22:00 EDT." <2.2.32.19960509002200.0069dc1c@attila.stevens-tech.edu>
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Parag Chhibber wrote in message ID <2.2.32.19960509002200.0069dc1c@attila.stevens-tech.edu>: > I've done quite a bit of reading around, and just wanted to make sure that I > understood the differences between the versions of FreeBSD. > -RELEASE : The absolutely safest version of FreeBSD (currently 2.1) > -STABLE : A newer version then the release, with some more bugfixes > -CURRENT : A newer version the the stable, basically a little less > stable. Not QUITE. -stable and -current come from different branches of the CVS tree. Basically, when 2.0.5 was released last summer, the source code was ``branched''. If you just did your work on the source tree normally, you would have made changes to the ``HEAD'', which is what makes up -current. If (at the minute) you make changes to the ``RELENG_2_1_0'' branch, you make a change to -stable. They are (in effect) two different source trees, both undergoing development at the same time, but only one (-current) should be getting new & experimental code, -stable should be getting bugfixes and other minor tweaks which won't affect system stability (hence the name) > -SNAPSHOT : The newest "version" of FreeBSD. Hmm. Actually, -SNAPs are versions of either 2.1(-stable) or 2.2(-current) which have been formed into a release-like distribution, but which we aren't willing to call releases :-) The same process occurs for a release and a snap. A SNAP you can install from scratch as it's a complete system, -stable and -current are just bits of source code which are useless unless you already have FreeBSD installed. You can use the -stable or -current sources to upgrade whichever version of FreeBSD you installed to either -stable or -current (respectively). > Is that correct? If it is, then I guess if I want to start an ISP, I should > start familiarizing myself with -RELEASE? If you are going to be doing something which requires (as a must) system stability, I would probably go for initially installing 2.1.0-RELEASE on your machine(s), downloading the -stable source code and upgrading the system to -stable by doing a make world. Some bug fixes which could affect stability of machines under high load are in -stable but not 2.1R. Gary -- Gary Palmer FreeBSD Core Team Member FreeBSD - Turning PC's into workstations. See http://www.FreeBSD.ORG/ for info.
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