Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2000 15:58:58 GMT From: Salvo Bartolotta <bartequi@neomedia.it> To: brennan@offwhite.net, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: make world failed Message-ID: <20000403.15585800@bartequi.ottodomain.org>
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Original Message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< On 4/3/00, 2:13:37 AM, Brennan W Stehling <brennan@offwhite.net> wrote regarding Re: make world failed : > gosh, thanks for the helpful comments. > actually, i did research this as much as i could. i have done this > many times in the past, but not over the major boundary. and when i > was looking over that make world page it did not offer any warning > about not working for the 4.0 upgrade. > and since i have done it before and was able to make it work with > little effort i figured it would work as it always have. i saw no > indication anywhere that there would be a problem. > if i cannot trust the official freebsd website to provide me with > proper instructions, why would i choose to continue using this > operating system? > i do not know who you are, but perhaps you should consider your > comments before sending them off next time. > i have been using FreeBSD for over 2 years now and have been mostly > happy with it. lately i have noticed more and more sites are offering= > helpful information on the bsd's and am glad for it, but no matter how= > much reading i may do, it is still hard to be a master of the system. > it's not like i can buy a detailed book on freebsd or find a detailed > web page on the official freebsd website which assists me in moving > from 3.x to 4.0. perhaps someone on this list can volunteer to submit= > a helpful article to one of the bsd sites to assist people like myself= > who want to learn but need a little help in administering this fine > operating system. > Brennan Stehling - web developer and sys admin > projects: www.onmilwaukee.com | www.sncalumni.com Dear Brennan W Stehling, I am an ordinary *Italian* FreeBSD user and I have recently upgraded from 3-STABLE to 4-CURRENT and then 4-STABLE. Although I succeeded in doing so, it was NOT exactly a child's play. Some special care WAS required. <STRICLY PERSONAL OPINION> <Remark I> FreeBSD 4 is a *revolutionary* OS. NO emphasis here. If you take the time and have a look at the changes undergone by the 3 branch (e.g. by carefully reading the relevant UPDATING file), you will realize how deep and sweeping changes were made to the previous version. <Remark II> FreeBSD 4-**CURRENT**, like any other -CURRENT, was NOT for the average "Joe" user: one might have had to face difficult issues, and have had to fix subtle problems. Sometimes the OS was even unbootable. Which required (IMHO) either a dedicated machine and/or a dedicated slice for it -- at a bare minimum, mind you. Quoting from the make world tutorial (my old 3.4 handbook copy on my HD): ---------------------- Beginning of quotation ----------------------- 17.4. Using make world to rebuild your system Contributed by Nik Clayton <nik@FreeBSD.org>. Once you have synchronised your local source tree against a particular version of FreeBSD (stable, current and so on) you must then use the source tree to rebuild the system. Take a backup: I cannot stress highly enough how important it is to take a backup of your system before you do this. While remaking the world is (as long as you follow these instructions) an easy task to do, there will inevitably be times when you make mistakes, or when mistakes made by others in the source tree render your system unbootable. Make sure you have taken a backup. And have a fixit floppy to hand. I have never needed to use them, and, touch wood, I never will, but it is always better to be safe than sorry. Subscribe to the right mailing list: The -stable and -current FreeBSD code branches are, by their nature, in development. People that contribute to FreeBSD are human, and mistakes occasionally happen. Sometimes these mistakes can be quite harmless, just causing your system to print a new diagnostic warning. Or the change may be catastrophic, and render your system unbootable or destroy your filesystems (or worse). If problems like these occur, a "heads up" is posted to the appropriate mailing list, explaining the nature of the problem and which systems it affects. And an "all clear" announcement is posted when the problem has been solved. If you try and track -stable or -current and do not read <FreeBSD-stable@FreeBSD.ORG> or <FreeBSD-current@FreeBSD.ORG> then you a= re asking for trouble. ----------------------- End of quotation --------------------------- You might want to pay special attention to the last paragraphs :-) Seriously: FreeBSD 4.0-CURRENT (recently become -RELEASE and then -STABLE) if the fruit of an awful lot of development. Which entails, in turn, a **different** (more complex) upgrading procedure. <Remark III> A warning note *should* have been put in the make world tutorial (and/or elsewhere in the handbook) when the 4-CURRENT became 4-RELEASE. Well, I am afraid the FreeBSD guys missed this ... *sigh* <Remark IV> However, the absence of the above mentioned warning note is NOT an *essential* issue -- in my Honest opinion. This is what I did in order to perform such a major upgrade: 1) I subscribed to the right mailing list (it was then freebsd-current; also, I had subscribed to -questions a few months before); 2) I read the UPDATING file; 3) I read the -current archives: that is, I browsed them **chronologically**, having a look at the letters written in the previous two months. And carefully studying the relevant ones. This gave me with an idea of the actual difficulties (as opposed to the "theory" ie the file UPDATING); 4) I created a dedicated slice, (re)installed 3-STABLE upon it and in the end I tried the upgrade to 4-CURRENT. N.B. Having subscribed to those lists, I found **a wealth** of information relating to the upgrading procedure (and problems.) So I did NOT even think of complaining about the missing warning note on the FreeBSD site :-) </STRICTLY PERSONAL OPINION> Mutatis mutandis, I think you should be able to do a similar job for 4-STABLE. You are in a better position: most of those problems have been fixed :-) My best wishes, Salvo Bartolotta To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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