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Date:      Sun, 6 Jul 2008 12:43:19 +0100 (BST)
From:      Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org>
To:        Matthias Apitz <matthias.apitz@oclc.org>
Cc:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: kernel HEAD && userland 7.0-REL?
Message-ID:  <20080706124135.C44832@fledge.watson.org>
In-Reply-To: <20080704124227.GA10264@rebelion.Sisis.de>
References:  <20080704124227.GA10264@rebelion.Sisis.de>

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On Fri, 4 Jul 2008, Matthias Apitz wrote:

> I'm running a RELENG_7 kernel and a userland as 7.0-REL on one of my 
> laptops; I've been asked to check if a given driver problem in RELENG_7 is 
> as well with HEAD... can I update the kernel to HEAD and let the userland 
> (and all my compiled ports) as 7.0-REL; I know that this is not the 
> intention, but it would cost me a lot of work if I should compile as well 
> ~200 ports....

As a general rule, running old userspace on a new kernel works pretty well, 
but you should expect certain types of things to not work -- for example, 
monitoring tools that expect the kernel layout of data structures to be 
unchanged.  Within a particular -STABLE branch this is a bit less volatile, 
but as you go from, say, 6-STABLE to a 7-STABLE kernel, the chances that some 
of the more obscure options to netstat, etc, will not work are pretty high. 
Likewise, be careful to disable any third-party kernel modules that may 
require recompiling but aren't caught by the base system build, or you'll get 
a nasty surprise when they panic. :-)

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge



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