Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 17:03:59 -0400 From: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> To: Xavier de Labouret <zezaz@chez.com> Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Tracking 4-stable rather than 4.8-stable Message-ID: <3ED12FBF.6000007@potentialtech.com> In-Reply-To: <3ED12C07.4080102@chez.com> References: <3ED12C07.4080102@chez.com>
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Xavier de Labouret wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I would like to follow 4-stable on my FreeBSD box, and i can't fetch
> binaries from /stand/sysinstall. Can anyone help me?
>
> Here is how i did:
>
> 1) I installed 4.8-RELEASE from CD,
> 2) I used cvsup to upgrade. For this i used the stable-supfile as shown
> in the Handbook.
>
> => My OS version as shown by 'uname -a' and '/stand/sysinstall' is
> "4.8-STABLE".
>
> It looks like "4.8-STABLE" is slightly different from "4-STABLE": my
> problem is, i can't install up-to-date packaged binaries with this release.
> (Precision: I know i could recompile everything manually from ports,
> but, as i like many gory like mozilla, gnome, openoffice... it would
> take many days dedicated to recompilation on my single PC.)
>
> So, i tried to upgrade from within '/stand/sysinstall' by FTP.
>
> - First, it complained that it can't find the "4.8-STABLE" distribution
> on my FTP source (which can be any FreeBSD server or mirror)
> - So, i tried to force the Release Version in the Options menu to
> 4-STABLE. No more luck, same error message...
> - As the error message suggested me to put "any" in the Release Version
> in the Options, i tried to. The error message got different then
> ("unable to get packages/INDEX from selected media"). But it kept
> unsuccessful.
>
> I am a little puzzled, because i feel like i followed the instructions,
> but it does not work as expected. I must have missed something. But what?
>
> Thank you in advance for showing me what i did wrong!
Packages are built for releases. To build packages for every possible
snapshot of stable is impossible.
If you want to install packages, change the option in sysinstall to
4.8-RELEASE. This is _not_ guaranteed to work (and is less likely the
further your -STABLE is from -RELEASE) but in my experience it works
fine almost all of the time.
What you _should_ do is build everything from ports. I understand your
argument about the time involved, but it's the price you pay for staying
-STABLE.
If you're trying to track a reliable version, you'd be better off tracking
the 4.8 branch (i.e. RELENG_4_8 in supfile). You'll still have to tweak
sysinstall to say 4.8-RELEASE in order to get packages installed, but you're
much less likely to have _any_ problems.
--
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com
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