Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 06:25:01 +0000 From: "Darryl L. Miles" <darryl@netbauds.net> To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Bj=F6rn_K=F6nig?= <bjoern.koenig@alpha-tierchen.de>, Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org> Cc: ports@freebsd.org Subject: Re: pkg_add for 5.2.1 no longer working... Message-ID: <42182D3D.1030706@netbauds.net> In-Reply-To: <20050220045721.A55CFCCD800@mail.alpha-tierchen.de> References: <20050220045721.A55CFCCD800@mail.alpha-tierchen.de>
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Björn König wrote: >set the environment variable PACKAGESITE to >ftp://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releas >es/i386/5.2.1-RELEASE/packages/Latest/ >permanently if you want to use packages of 5.2.1-RELEASE. > > Many Thanks, this has done the trick. Kris Kennaway wrote: >Right. Since 5.2.1 is an obsolete release it was removed from the >main ftp site last year after the release of 5.3 to free up some >space. Some mirrors may still carry it - look with >http://mirrorlist.freebsd.org and set the environment variables >described in the pkg_add(1) manpage to use the alternate site. > > > OBSOLETE! I would understand you saying its not current, or not the latest, but "obsolete" generally means the version has under gone its complete lifecycle, it came out, was superceeded (5.3), then those last installs of 5.2.1 would get their expected system lifetime to run (lets say 3 years), only at this point would 5.2.1 become obsolete. This has allowed enough time for all systems to be upgraded from it. There must be 1000's of systems out there running 5.2.1 right now and these system (overnight) have already begun the rather steep slope into unmaintainability. The main distribution point of freebsd has deleted a few Gb to recover diskspace would the main site be best hosted at one of its mirrors ? One huge advantage of binary distrubutions (of packages/ports) is that it makes for easy administration. Not only just to install the package but if 99% of people will be using that same binary package (over building it themselves), those 99% of people can use their advantage of having that specific binary/build tested over a large userbase, use that advantage to know how and if they are affected by security updates relating to that build of the package (as any one of them can do the audit and post results that have meaning to the other users of that package), use that advantage to report on runtime problems relating to that build of the package and so on. Free BSD's policy seems to read that once a new mainline release comes out, users now have to start building their own binary ports for their old version of Free BSD. Free BSD will no longer provide or even keep around the latest build of each package from the time when the distribution version was current. I don't expect any back porting of even upgrading of packages after the version is no longer mainline, but I would expect the frozen state from the point it was superceeded to still be available. I'm still very new to Free BSD so I'm trying to understand the mission statement and where it fits into the world, like do the benifits outweigh the headaches. Just my 2 cents. Thanks for your answers folks, Darryl
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