Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1998 22:32:30 +0800 From: Peter Wemm <peter@netplex.com.au> To: John Birrell <jb@cimlogic.com.au> Cc: Studded@dal.net (Studded), current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Upgrade documentation (Was: Re: Make world error on -current elf) Message-ID: <199809261432.WAA08035@spinner.netplex.com.au> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 26 Sep 1998 21:24:46 %2B1000." <199809261124.VAA20210@cimlogic.com.au>
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John Birrell wrote: > Studded wrote: > > Several of us now have asked for detailed, step by step instructions on > > how to upgrade to the most recent 3.0 and unless I've missed it, it > > hasn't been posted yet. Personally I'd like instructions on coming from > > -Stable, I'm sure others could use instructions on doing just the elf > > bits, etc. A good place for these instructions would be the web page > > somewhere the main site that we could point people too. > > > > I realize that y'all are busy making the new stuff happen, but you > > can't expect people to do the upgrade and consequent beta-testing > > without a pointer in the right direction. I'm hoping that the 3.0 branch > > will soon actually settle down enough so that I can justify moving > > forward bravely myself. :) > > OK, I've had a go at doing this. Have a look at http://www.cimlogic.com.au/ > and let me know if this was the sort of thing you were expecting. If so, > we can put it on www.freebsd.org. I am still not quite comfortable with the 3.0-CURRENT -> elf conversion process. The instructions there and the Makefile.upgrade rules push towards an unneded recompile and reboot of a kernel in order to complete the process. Any 3.0-CURRENT kernel from about July 1997 (over a year old) will run an ELF world quite happily. IMHO, defaulting to unecessarily replacing the user's customized kernel with a generic one is bad karma. Yes, one can press ctrl-C, but it's not obvious that something else isn't going to be skipped as a result. The message spells out threats and implies that aborting at that point is going to be bad. Obviously if you're on a 2.2 system, that is true, but for a 10-September-1998 system that cannot run GENERICupgrade, that's silly. IMHO, this automated decision should be based on the kern.osreldate sysctl. If it's undefined or < 300001, then do the rebuild/reboot. The patches to do this are low impact and low risk. Also, installing the kernel and doing an instant reboot would "feel" better if it did a 'Building kernel; installing kernel; press return to reboot, ctrl-C to abort; reboot' type sequence. The reboot binary rescued from the system doesn't run rc.shutdown. On the other hand, I can understand John's desire to keep the number of variables down in the elfification process, but in this particular instance I feel the information given at least could be improved so the user can make a more informed decision about accepting the advice of the Makefile.upgrade process. Cheers, -Peter To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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