Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 15:54:03 -0400 From: John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org> To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Cc: Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com>, Walter Hop <freebsd@spam.lifeforms.nl> Subject: Re: Small motd nit in 10.1 Message-ID: <201410301554.03504.jhb@freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <93E9657A-737E-4705-A0E5-01F9E9110261@gromit.dlib.vt.edu> References: <8C81A636-D2B5-4EFB-9EA3-58E88E16CA94@spam.lifeforms.nl> <alpine.BSF.2.11.1410291809280.16887@wonkity.com> <93E9657A-737E-4705-A0E5-01F9E9110261@gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wednesday, October 29, 2014 8:47:42 pm Paul Mather wrote: > On Oct 29, 2014, at 8:14 PM, Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com> wrote: > > > On Wed, 29 Oct 2014, Walter Hop wrote: > > > >> I noticed that the motd has been updated, which is great. > >> https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/releng/10.1/etc/motd?revision=272461&view=markup > >> > >> However, the following line could be improved: > >> Show the version of FreeBSD installed: uname -a > >> > >> I would recommend changing the line to: > >> Show the version of FreeBSD installed: freebsd-version > >> > >> Users often confuse the kernel version (uname -a) with the actual FreeBSD version from the freebsd-version(1) command. Because of this, people needlessly worry whether their system was updated correctly after freebsd- update has run, because they erroneously check this with ?uname -a?. A small motd change will hopefully prevent that. > > > > Sorry, I don't understand the source of confusion. > > The potential confusion arises because freebsd-version agrees with > freebsd-update, but uname doesn't always. If you track FreeBSD via > freebsd-update, uname only gets bumped when the kernel is updated. If > you want to know which version of FreeBSD you're running, which command > is more accurate: freebsd-version or uname -a? I would argue the former > (freebsd-version). A fact I continue to bemoan. :( > If you track FreeBSD via source updates, freebsd-version and uname -a > match each other, so long as you update kernel and world together. > > Consider the system below, updated using freebsd-update after the last > advisory causing an update to 10.0-RELEASE: > > ===== > % freebsd-version > 10.0-RELEASE-p11 > % uname -a > FreeBSD chumby.dlib.vt.edu 10.0-RELEASE-p10 FreeBSD 10.0-RELEASE-p10 #0: Mon Oct 20 12:38:37 UTC 2014 root@amd64- builder.daemonology.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC i386 > ===== The problem, of course, is that if you are obtaining the version for a bug report or an e-mail to the lists, the latter output provides more details (e.g. architecture as Warren noted) even though it is stale due to implementation details of freebsd-update. -- John Baldwin
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?201410301554.03504.jhb>