From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Mar 15 20:47:08 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E6D6416A401 for ; Thu, 15 Mar 2007 20:47:08 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from alex@schnarff.com) Received: from outbound.mailhop.org (outbound.mailhop.org [63.208.196.171]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C0DEB13C46A for ; Thu, 15 Mar 2007 20:47:08 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from alex@schnarff.com) Received: from c-68-49-149-185.hsd1.va.comcast.net ([68.49.149.185] helo=schnarff.com) by outbound.mailhop.org with esmtpa (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1HRwqp-000EUy-JU for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Thu, 15 Mar 2007 16:47:07 -0400 Received: (qmail 14726 invoked by uid 67); 15 Mar 2007 20:47:06 -0000 Received: from 192.168.2.68 ([192.168.2.68]) by mail.schnarff.com (Horde) with HTTP for ; Thu, 15 Mar 2007 16:47:06 -0400 X-Mail-Handler: MailHop Outbound by DynDNS X-Originating-IP: 68.49.149.185 X-Report-Abuse-To: abuse@dyndns.com (see http://www.mailhop.org/outbound/abuse.html for abuse reporting information) X-MHO-User: schnarff Message-ID: <20070315164706.4fy8vlmhw00kk4s8@mail.schnarff.com> Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 16:47:06 -0400 From: alex@schnarff.com To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format="flowed" Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit User-Agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) H3 (4.0.4) Subject: Should I Upgrade 5.4 -> 6.2? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 20:47:09 -0000 First off, I want to thank the people who responded to my thread "Stability Issues on a 5.4-RELEASE box" a couple of weeks ago; after disabling hyperthreading, getting a clean run of Memtest back, and doing some serious fsck'ing of the disks, the box appears to now be completely stable. I'm still not sure which of the above fixed the problem...but I'll take a stable system at this point. :-) That said, in that thread I had asked about the advisability of upgrading to 6.2, and it was intelligently pointed out that doing so in pursuit of stability was a bad idea. Now that the box is stable, though, I'm back to the same question: should I make the upgrade, and if so, how should I do it? My primary driver for doing so would be to keep current enough that I'm still getting security and other patches on a regular basis, and that I can upgrade my applications from ports as necessary. If this is not an issue, then my only remaining concern would be that it's usually easier to get support on lists like this if you're running a modern version of the OS (that's certainly the case with the OpenBSD folks). My primary concern with upgrading is that the box is in Portland, OR, and I'm in Arlington, VA...and while the ISP is friendly, I doubt that I could count on them for major system recovery if I botch something during the upgrade. My other worry is that I don't want to break existing apps if possible (the main one I'm concerned about is Zope/Plone). This is a production box with moderate traffic, and it would be a problem if there was extensive downtime. Is it worth upgrading? If so, what's the best way to do so -- CVSup, or some other way? Are there any major caveats if I do choose to upgrade (or choose to stay with the existing OS)? Thanks, Alex Kirk