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Date:      18 Oct 2002 11:43:54 -0700
From:      swear@attbi.com (Gary W. Swearingen)
To:        Matt Smith <matt@forsetti.com>
Cc:        joe <joe-dated-1035389534.144fdb@dubium.com>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Best practice when building a  -STABLE branch kernel
Message-ID:  <0v8z0v4mfp.z0v@localhost.localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <1034957669.90679.6.camel@localhost>
References:  <200210180910.55374.joe@dubium.com> <1034957669.90679.6.camel@localhost>

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Matt Smith <matt@forsetti.com> writes:

> The business-as-usual practice would be to not run -Stable, but rather
> run a -Release.  -Stable, although more stable than -Current, should not
> be run in business-production, although my hunch is that many small
> environments do.

IMO, the best practice is to build your OS and thoroughly test it as you
will be using it before putting it into important use.  If you do this,
you might as well use -STABLE.  Otherwise, unless you really need
something in -STABLE, you should use -RELEASE except that you should
review security fixes, etc, and maybe upgrade using a cvs tag like
RELENG_4_7 which has only important fixes for -RELEASE-4.7.

> If you are running -Stable, then chances are you have some technical
> knowledge, and could contribute back to the project, in which case
> including debugging options could be helpful.

AFAIK, including the debugging options is not risky or performance-
harming (except maybe using more memory?).  But for most people, it
doesn't make much sense to use it unless you also prepare your OS to
save crash dumps.  Most will do all this only so they can help OS
development by giving decent reports about OS crashes.  I know of no
good reason not to do it for any OS version, except to avoid the setup
effort.  It doesn't take much technical knowledge that can't be learned
by reading the FAQ about "kernel panics" (and maybe a few manuals
starting with crash(8)).

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