Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Wed, 29 Oct 2014 20:47:42 -0400
From:      Paul Mather <paul@gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
To:        Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com>
Cc:        freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.org, Walter Hop <freebsd@spam.lifeforms.nl>
Subject:   Re: Small motd nit in 10.1
Message-ID:  <93E9657A-737E-4705-A0E5-01F9E9110261@gromit.dlib.vt.edu>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1410291809280.16887@wonkity.com>
References:  <8C81A636-D2B5-4EFB-9EA3-58E88E16CA94@spam.lifeforms.nl> <alpine.BSF.2.11.1410291809280.16887@wonkity.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Oct 29, 2014, at 8:14 PM, Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Oct 2014, Walter Hop wrote:
>=20
>> I noticed that the motd has been updated, which is great.
>> =
https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/releng/10.1/etc/motd?revision=3D272461&vie=
w=3Dmarkup
>>=20
>> However, the following line could be improved:
>> Show the version of FreeBSD installed:  uname -a
>>=20
>> I would recommend changing the line to:
>> Show the version of FreeBSD installed:  freebsd-version
>>=20
>> 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.
>=20
> 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).

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:

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
% freebsd-version=20
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
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

When you run freebsd-update on that system it considers itself currently
as being a 10.0-RELEASE-p11 system when checking for updates.

Cheers,

Paul.=



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?93E9657A-737E-4705-A0E5-01F9E9110261>