Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 13:35:00 -0600 From: Josh Paetzel <josh@tcbug.org> To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Productivity with FBSD, or: "portupgrade" vs. virus scans.... Message-ID: <200702061335.00982.josh@tcbug.org> In-Reply-To: <45C8CB7B.5090200@daleco.biz> References: <45C8CB7B.5090200@daleco.biz>
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On Tuesday 06 February 2007 12:39, Kevin Kinsey wrote: > Hello, > > Length/content-warning: Please excuse my excessive grumbling, if > that's what it is. Lots of this is background; material for > discussion is at the bottom. I've edited it a good deal, but it's > still wordy. > > Psychological-bent-warning: I need a vacation, and will take one > soon. Also, for various reasons, business stats aren't looking good > yet this year (or much of last). > --- > > I'd like to hear opinions from those (and there are many, AFAICT) > who use FreeBSD as a personal workstation, if you have time to > respond. > > My computer is my workstation _and_ my little company (and family) > server. Lately I've been (perhaps unjustly?) *feeling* I'd be just > as well off to put this box in a corner to serve and purchase > another MS exec's daughter an iPod. > > I've been an (outspoken?) FBSD advocate and desktop user for 3 > years now, give or take. FBSD makes a great gen-purpose machine - > stable OS, the ports collection is wonderful and FBSD's > full-featuredness puts WinXP to shame when it comes to networking, > troubleshooting, and standards-compliant web development (which is > mostly what I do besides typical communication and research > functions). I can do stuff in a heartbeat that coworkers who are > MS-only users have to search for apps to do. And the only way to > beat the license cost would be if the Project paid me ;-) > > But I'm having trouble keeping up with desktop ports. A couple of > apps necessary for my "comfy GUI" (xfce4-panel is one, seamonkey > has been another) are/have dump(ing/ed) core regularly. At least > twice in the past year some element(s) of my environment was broken > to the point where I decided to simply "make deinstall" in > /usr/ports rather than try and fix the issues. Maybe I missed > something in UPDATING <?>, but I've not noted anything ex post > facto. It could be that I simply get tired of sitting at the desk > - maybe I need more management scripts (already have some that make > "buildworld, etc." almost totally pain-free). > > Every once in a while (generally while upgrading ports/packages), I > look over there and see our single Windows machine and think, "we > never have to run `portupgrade` on that boxen... and I'm smart > enough to avoid virii." > > My box does *everything* except provide workstation facilities to > my family and co-workers. Company intranet and site development > server, gateway/fw/nat/proxy, POP/IMAP and MTA, SAMBA, DNS, rsync > for backups, print services via apsfilter over lpr, and, my desktop > with XFCE4. I have set up scripts to handle rebuilding -STABLE, > usually about monthly. I have the CD Burner we use; the only thing > we need Win* for are the kid's games and school apps, as a "test > box" for clients and web previewing in MSIE, and the fact that > other family members (and one co-worker) all prefer "known > territory". > > Needless to say, the FBSD box needs to be "up and running" almost > all the time. It seems lately that maintaining the many ports > providing all these services is taking away valuable time that > should be spent *really working*. > > Perhaps I need a more reliable Internet link; packet radio > occasionally (at least with my current provider) seems to > experience sharp drops in performance, which makes tarball-fetching > take a long time during the day, whilst the fact that there are so > many ports installed means "portupgrade -arR --fetch-only" takes > more than an overnight, also. > > I've had a co-worker with an extremely stable FBSD desktop; stable > in the sense that, everything GUI-wise worked as expected for month > after month after month. But the hardware was borken and wouldn't > build world, so we never upgraded the OS or ports/packages, and > apparently got a "good scale" on it the first time. > > If you're a desktop FBSD user: > > How do you keep up with ports? > > *Do you have (or have you, at some time, had) much trouble? > > *If you have trouble, do you accept it as a "cost" of using > FreeBSD? > > How often do you upgrade your ports/packages? > > Any suggestions on what I might do differently? > > *Should I quit updating FBSD except for major point releases? > > *Should we upgrade the server-type ports and leave the desktop > apps alone when we get a "stable" configuration there? > > *How dangerous is it to be using outdated ports (particularly > the servers)? > > To sum up, I doubt I'll jettison FBSD from my desktop, but I wish > to be assured I'm not wasting time doing what amounts to "busy > work" to keep my 3rd-party apps going when I could sit at the next > desk and probably worry less about that.... > > Thanks for your time, thoughts and strategies, > > Kevin Kinsey I've been using FreeBSD as my desktop OS for over a decade now, and on servers a bit longer than that. I guess I've grown used to some of the quirks in the ports tree. I'm very very conservative about upgrading. Unless there is a bug that effects me directly, a security issue that effects me, or some sort of new feature I just can't live without I don't upgrade mission critical boxes. Which means all of my servers were running 4.11 until very recently. :) Sure, I don't mind playing around with the latest and greatest, I have a 6.2 box or two sitting here at home, but when it comes to things I need to get work done I don't generally mess with working configurations unless I have to. As far as upgrading ports go, I'm not a proponent of automated tools. When I upgrade something I pkg_delete it and any needed dependancies by hand and then install the new versions from ports. -- Thanks, Josh Paetzel
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