108 lines
4.4 KiB
Text
108 lines
4.4 KiB
Text
<!-- $Id: stable.sgml,v 1.14 1997-08-12 09:18:26 asami Exp $ -->
|
|
<!-- The FreeBSD Documentation Project -->
|
|
|
|
|
|
<sect><heading>Staying Stable with FreeBSD<label id="stable"></heading>
|
|
|
|
<p><em>Contributed by &a.jkh;.</em>
|
|
|
|
<!--
|
|
|
|
THE FREEBSD STABLE POLICY
|
|
|
|
Last updated: $Date: 1997-08-12 09:18:26 $
|
|
|
|
This document attempts to explain the rationale behind
|
|
FreeBSD-stable, what you should expect should you decide to run it,
|
|
and states some prerequisites for making sure the process goes as
|
|
smoothly as possible.
|
|
-->
|
|
|
|
<sect1><heading>What is FreeBSD-stable?</heading>
|
|
|
|
<p>FreeBSD-stable is our development branch for a more low-key and
|
|
conservative set of changes intended for our next mainstream release.
|
|
Changes of an experimental or untested nature do not go into this
|
|
branch (see <ref id="current" name="FreeBSD-current">).
|
|
|
|
<sect1><heading>Who needs FreeBSD-stable?</heading>
|
|
|
|
<p>If you are a commercial user or someone who puts maximum stability of
|
|
their FreeBSD system before all other concerns, you should consider tracking
|
|
<em>stable</em>. This is especially true if you have installed the most
|
|
recent release (<url url="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/2.2.2-RELEASE"
|
|
name="2.2.2-RELEASE"> at the time of this writing) since the <em>stable</em>
|
|
branch is effectively a bug-fix stream relative to the previous release.
|
|
|
|
<p>Please note that the <em>stable</em> tree endeavors, above all, to
|
|
be fully compilable and stable at all times, but we do occasionally
|
|
make mistakes (these are still active sources with quickly-transmitted
|
|
updates, after all). We also do our best to thoroughly test fixes in
|
|
<em>current</em> before bringing them into <em>stable</em>, but sometimes
|
|
our tests fail to catch every case. If something breaks for you in
|
|
<em>stable</em>, please let us know <em>immediately!</em> (see
|
|
next section).
|
|
|
|
<sect1><heading>Using FreeBSD-stable</heading>
|
|
|
|
<p><enum><item> Join the &a.stable . This will
|
|
keep you informed of build-dependencies that may appear in
|
|
<em>stable</em> or any other issues requiring special attention.
|
|
Developers will also make announcements in this mailing list when
|
|
they are contemplating some contraversal fix or update, giving
|
|
the users a chance to respond if they have any issues to raise concerning
|
|
the proposed change.
|
|
|
|
To join this list, send mail to &a.majordomo and say:
|
|
<verb>
|
|
subscribe freebsd-stable
|
|
</verb>
|
|
In the body of your message. Optionally, you can also say `help'
|
|
and Majordomo will send you full help on how to subscribe and
|
|
unsubscribe to the various other mailing lists we support.
|
|
|
|
<item> Grab the sources from ftp.FreeBSD.ORG. You can do this in
|
|
three ways:
|
|
|
|
<enum>
|
|
<item> Use the <ref id="ctm" name="CTM"> facility. Unless you
|
|
have a good TCP/IP connection at a flat rate, this is
|
|
the way to do it.
|
|
|
|
<item> Use the <ref id="cvsup" name="cvsup"> program with
|
|
<url url="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/FreeBSD-current/src/share/examples/cvsup/stable-supfile" name="this supfile">.
|
|
This is the second most recommended method, since it allows
|
|
you to grab the entire collection once and then only what has
|
|
changed from then on. Many people run cvsup from cron
|
|
to keep their sources up-to-date automatically.
|
|
|
|
<item> Use ftp. The source tree for FreeBSD-stable is always
|
|
"exported" on:
|
|
<htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.ORG/pub/FreeBSD/FreeBSD-stable"
|
|
name="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.ORG/pub/FreeBSD/FreeBSD-stable">
|
|
|
|
<p>We also use `wu-ftpd' which allows compressed/tar'd grabbing
|
|
of whole trees. e.g. you see:
|
|
<verb>
|
|
usr.bin/lex
|
|
</verb>
|
|
You can do:
|
|
<verb>
|
|
ftp> cd usr.bin
|
|
ftp> get lex.tar.Z
|
|
</verb>
|
|
And it will get the whole directory for you as a compressed
|
|
tar file.
|
|
</enum>
|
|
|
|
<item> Essentially, if you need rapid on-demand access to the source and
|
|
communications bandwidth is not a consideration, use cvsup or ftp.
|
|
Otherwise, use CTM.
|
|
|
|
<item> Before compiling stable, read the Makefile in /usr/src
|
|
carefully. You should at least run a `make world' the first time
|
|
through as part of the upgrading process.
|
|
Reading the &a.stable will keep you up-to-date on other bootstrapping
|
|
procedures that sometimes become necessary as we move towards the next
|
|
release.
|
|
</enum>
|