Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2019 18:15:47 +0100 From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> To: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: FreeBSD updating experience Message-ID: <20191219181547.22a0b942.freebsd@edvax.de>
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I have recently installed a new experimental desktop system and updated another existing one. During those tasks, I found some things which I'd like to mention - am I the only one who experiences those things, or is this common? Preface: I have _never_ experienced stuff like this on servers; from my limited point of view, it's limited to desktops. In my case, FreeBSD 12.0 and 12.1 are involved (64 bit systems, with use of pkg + freebsd_update). Okay, let's start: If I install the Midnight Commander, both Python 2.7 and 3.6 get installed, with several modules, each in the 2.7 and 3.6 version. Some user-facing "normal" application (whose name I forgot) will install gcc, even though no compiling takes place, and the program itself is not related to any kind of programming. I think it was something like pdftk that installed gcc and binutils, and wine installs gcc9... In addition to those packages that get installed even though they don't seem to be needed, functions stop working. On a system where they were properly configured, running, and installed, an update made them stop working. For example, in the CUPS web interface, none of the 4 printers is listed. If I enter "Laserjet" in the search box at the top, 2 printers that contain "Laserjet" are listed, the other 2 printers are missing. And printing to one of them (Officejet, hplip, installed and configured, and _worked_ before the update) now causes a few lines of raw PS text to be printed, followed by a handful of empty pages. Opeining PDF files in Firefox does no longer open them "inline" (PDF viewer in a Firefox tab), but asks for an application to open with, but does not make xpdf selectable even though it's installed; however, many associations are now pointing to the "Internet Explorer" that comes with the wine installation. Having seen all this, the rule "never touch a running system" seems to bear some truth, even though, of course you cannot do this with servers facing the big bad Internet (or hordes of office drones who will click on everything they see), but as I said initially, updating servers has _never_ caused that kind of trouble for me. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, but... really... if I wanted such an experience, I'd be using "Windows" where updates will always break something, reliably, it's just about the surprise of _what_ will stop working... Of course, if I'm not the only one who sees this kind of post-update behaviour, it's definitely something to consider for novice users who use FreeBSD as a desktop. Again, I'm using FreeBSD as a desktop system nearly exclusively since 4.0, so I _know_ it can be done. But this... I don't know... -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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