Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2001 09:58:15 -0500 From: Bob Johnson <bob@eng.ufl.edu> To: brucep@electricrodeo.com Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How do I tell what release I have? Message-ID: <3A801107.AE5F6E52@eng.ufl.edu>
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> > > Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 10:33:36 +0200 > From: Neil Blakey-Milner <nbm@mithrandr.moria.org> > Subject: Re: How do I tell what release I have? > > On Mon 2001-02-05 (23:47), Bruce Phillips wrote: > > I sure it sounds dump, but i can tell what version of BSD , I just > > bought at frys. The disks are labeled as FreeBSD toolkit 5.0-current, > > June 2000. > > That's the development branch (named -CURRENT). > > > yet according to your web site. version 5.0 is'nt due for 2 months & > > your june 2000 release appears to be version 3.5? > > That's the last (almost) release on the 3.x series production (-STABLE) > branch. It came out after FreeBSD 4.0, the first release on the 4.x > series production branch. > > > what am I missing here? > > It's not really hard to understand after it has been explained. > > 3.0 (production) --- 3.x --- 3.4 --- 3.5 (end of line) > \ (well-tested changes only) (security and bug fixes only) > \ > \- (4.0 development) -------- 4.0-RELEASE (production) --- 4.1 > (full-on development) \ (well-tested changes only) > \ > \- (5.0 development) > (full-on development) > > Or something like that. > Nice chart. As clarification I'll add some text: At any given time there are at least two, and sometimes three, versions of FreeBSD that can be considered up to date. Ongoing development, experimental stuff, etc. is always happening, and the version that happens to is called "CURRENT". Right now FreeBSD 5.0 is in the CURRENT phase, so it is called "5.0-CURRENT", or simply "-CURRENT". Once in a while, -CURRENT is declared to be ready for production use, and the development tree splits off a new branch by renaming it to -RELEASE. Thus, at some point in the past 4.0-CURRENT was renamed 4.0-RELEASE, and was also renamed 5.0-CURRENT so that there would still be a CURRENT version to use for new development. For a brief period, until someone started adding more new stuff to -CURRENT, 4.0-RELEASE and 5.0-CURRENT were identical (and so was 4.0-STABLE, but we haven't gotten to that yet). As new ideas are tested in CURRENT and proved to be "good", they are ported back to the production version, i.e. the RELEASE. The RELEASE, then, is also always changing, and to distinguish the exact configuration at the time the RELEASE was created from subsequent versions that have had these changes added, the changed version is called STABLE. Thus, the most recent production release of FreeBSD was called 4.2-RELEASE, but if you include the changes that have been made since it was released, you have 4.2-STABLE. Like CURRENT, a complete specification of a STABLE version must include the date and time it was built because it changes every day as more changes are made. Every once in a while (roughly three times a year), the STABLE version is frozen as a RELEASE and distributed on CDs (and as downloadable ISO CD images). This is where minor version numbers come from. Thus, although 4.0-RELEASE was created by freezing 4.0-CURRENT, 4.1-RELEASE and 4.2-RELEASE were created by freezing 4.x-STABLE. Finally, for some time after a new production release is created (i.e. a new major version number), the old one will continue to receive bug fixes, particularly for security-related problems. Thus, the old 3.5-STABLE is still rarely updated with security patches, but probably won't be for much longer. To summarize: new development happens in -CURRENT. Right now that's 5.0-CURRENT. Production releases are called -RELEASE, and when you add in accumulated changes to the latest production release, you get -STABLE. Major version numbers change when -CURRENT becomes -RELEASE. Minor version numbers change when -STABLE becomes -RELEASE. New RELEASEs are distributed on CD ROM. Tertiary version numbers are created only for special situations. Right now new development is in 5.0-CURRENT, the latest production release available on CD is 4.2-RELEASE, and the latest production version (downloadable as source code but not distributed on CD) is called 4.2-STABLE. I don't know if that long winded explanation was worth the effort, particularly since this is explained in the FreeBSD Handbook at http://www.freebsd.org , but since I've already done the work, here it is... - Bob To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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