Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 23:32:00 -0400 From: "Mike." <the.lists@mgm51.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD-update? Message-ID: <201304242332000938.0324FC0A@sentry.24cl.com> In-Reply-To: <20130425044744.3ebda15f.freebsd@edvax.de> References: <201304242307.r3ON7AEg039368@chilled.skew.org> <201304242232170093.02EE4C98@sentry.24cl.com> <20130425044744.3ebda15f.freebsd@edvax.de>
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On 4/25/2013 at 4:47 AM Polytropon wrote: |On Wed, 24 Apr 2013 22:32:17 -0400, Mike. wrote: |> If uname -r [-a] does not give the proper version of the OS, then it is |> either a bug, or the documentation for uname should be changed. |> Currently, the man page for uname gives the following option: |> |> -r Write the current release level of the operating system to |> stan- |> dard output. | |Also the manpage of uname(3) would require a change to make clear |that the version of the _kernel_ is provided, which _may_ stay the |same during patchlevels of a given version. From that point of |view, if we consider the patchlevel _not_ being part of the OS |_version_, the statement (as it currently reads) makes sense. |The understanding is: Version 9.1 is the OS version, and if |a patch has been added, it's still 9.1 (even though the more |precise information is 9.1-p5 for example). Similarly consider |followint -STABLE: in this case, 9-STABLE or 9.1-STABLE is being |reported, because no "precise" version numbers exist on that |branch (at least not in the terms of patchlevels, instead a |repository revision number or the date of the checkout could |be considered for precision). | |The uname program relies on the uname system call to get the |system identification, which queries the information stored in a |(struct utsname *) data structure: | | The uname() function stores NUL-terminated strings of information |identi- | fying the current system into the structure referenced by name. | | | The utsname structure is defined in the <sys/utsname.h> header file, |and | contains the following members: | | release Release level of the operating system. | | version Version level of the operating system. | |This part of documentation would, given the case, also require |adjustment, refering to the kernel instead of the OS. ============= On the other hand, maybe instead of changing the documentation of uname to accommodate a problem with freebsd update, maybe freebsd update should be changed to accommodate the historical and expected performance of uname. In other words, once I found out this problem with freebsd update (i.e., not properly refreshing the OS version), I stopped using it, as I was not able to ascertain the current state of my OS installation anymore.
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