FreeBSD 7.0-BETA4 - Is it stable for home user?

A2B

does xorg work with all the ports

Howard Goldstein

On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:00:54 GMT, A2B <a2b@backagain.com> wrote:
: does xorg work with all the ports

Starting at 7.02b2 to 3 from as recently as last sunday has been solid
on the desktop here. I rebuilt all of my ports for xorg 7 months ago
however. If you're already at xorg7 it should be a painless source
update.

Andrew Reilly

On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:17:43 +0000, Max Haus wrote:

> Howard Goldstein wrote:
>> On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:00:54 GMT, A2B <a2b@backagain.com> wrote:
>> : does xorg work with all the ports
>>
>> Starting at 7.02b2 to 3 from as recently as last sunday has been solid
>> on the desktop here. I rebuilt all of my ports for xorg 7 months ago
>> however. If you're already at xorg7 it should be a painless source
>> update.
>>
>>
> Likewise. I upgraded to xorg 7 a few months back. I use gdm for my
> desktop. Two weeks ago I upgraded from FreeBSD 6.3 to 7.0 BETA2. No
> problems.

Yes, but have you attempted to upgrade your installed ports since the
switch to 7.0? When I did, all sorts of things broke, because the non-
upgraded shared libraries were linked against libpthread, but the new
ones were against libthr, which meant that applications linking to both
old and new libraries broke in ugly ways (similarly for bumped versions
of libc, libm and libz, and probably others). As far as I can tell, the
only way to proceed is (a) exit X and fall back to a "core"-only console
environment, and then portupgrade -af (probably --batch, so you don't
have to nurse it through all of the configs). The trouble with *that* is
that if anything doesn't build properly, there's no way to tell
portupgrade not to rebuild all of the pieces that *did* build OK the last
time (it has no breakpoint/restart mechanism). So you can use
portupgrade --batch -akf, and then fix broken ports by hand, if you can.

Having been working my way through this maze for a week or two, I'm half
of the opinion that I should have just made a list of the installed ports
(i.e., ls /var/db/pkg), backed up /usr/local/etc, and then blown /usr/
local clean away, and then portinstalled from my list.

7.0 seems beautifully stable in and of itself. It's certainly great for
server applications, and it's probably fine if you're doing a clean
install. There's library version bumpage to watch out for if you try to
upgrade in place, though. Particularly for a desktop, where the amount
of ports-based stuff tends to be *large*.

Cheers,

--
Andrew

Balwinder S Dheeman

On 12/07/2007 05:47 AM, Max Haus wrote:
> Howard Goldstein wrote:
>> On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:00:54 GMT, A2B <a2b@backagain.com> wrote:
>> : does xorg work with all the ports
>>
>> Starting at 7.02b2 to 3 from as recently as last sunday has been solid
>> on the desktop here. I rebuilt all of my ports for xorg 7 months ago
>> however. If you're already at xorg7 it should be a painless source
>> update.
>>
>
> Likewise. I upgraded to xorg 7 a few months back. I use gdm for my
> desktop. Two weeks ago I upgraded from FreeBSD 6.3 to 7.0 BETA2. No
> problems.

I did many experiments while I was trying to make my Intel/PRO 2200BG
card work smoothly with FreeBSD -- upgraded from 6.0-RELEASE to 6.1,
then 6.2 and even 7.0-CURRENT, downgraded to 6.1-RELEASE, upgraded again
to 7.0-CURRENT; Xorg 7.x stopped working during one downgrade that's why
I again moved to 7.0-CURRENT and now a days I am running 8.0-CURRENT,
Xorg-7.3, KDE-3.5.8 on my DELL Inspiron 4150 without any problems.

FYI, all my lib/compat subdirectories are clean and, or empty; I don't
install pre-compiled packages and I'm patient enough to make the broken
apps work; all this seems quite a tedious job sometimes.

All you have to do is read the /usr/src/UPDATING and /usr/ports/UPDATING
files carefully and follow directions of developers and, or maintainers
of these systems. Moreover, one should know well what one is doing.

As for as stability of 7.0-BETA4 and, or other BETA releases for home
user is concerned -- their is no harm in trying these. The FreeBSD is
community project, developed and, or maintained by users for users, so
the feedback and, or constructive criticism from users is not only
welcomed, but is also appreciated as contribution.

--
Dr Balwinder S "bsd" Dheeman Registered Linux User: #229709
Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe) Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India Gentoo, Fedora, Debian/FreeBSD/XP
Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/ Visit: http://counter.li.org/

Max Haus

Howard Goldstein wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:00:54 GMT, A2B <a2b@backagain.com> wrote:
> : does xorg work with all the ports
>
> Starting at 7.02b2 to 3 from as recently as last sunday has been solid
> on the desktop here. I rebuilt all of my ports for xorg 7 months ago
> however. If you're already at xorg7 it should be a painless source
> update.
>

Likewise. I upgraded to xorg 7 a few months back. I use gdm for my
desktop. Two weeks ago I upgraded from FreeBSD 6.3 to 7.0 BETA2. No
problems.

Howard Goldstein

On 7 Dec 2007 05:02:53 GMT, Andrew Reilly <andrew-newspost@areilly.bpc-users.org> wrote:
: On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:17:43 +0000, Max Haus wrote:
:
: > Howard Goldstein wrote:
: >> On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:00:54 GMT, A2B <a2b@backagain.com> wrote:
: >> : does xorg work with all the ports
: >>
: >> Starting at 7.02b2 to 3 from as recently as last sunday has been solid
: >> on the desktop here. I rebuilt all of my ports for xorg 7 months ago
: >> however. If you're already at xorg7 it should be a painless source
: >> update.
: >>
: >>
: > Likewise. I upgraded to xorg 7 a few months back. I use gdm for my
: > desktop. Two weeks ago I upgraded from FreeBSD 6.3 to 7.0 BETA2. No
: > problems.
:
: Yes, but have you attempted to upgrade your installed ports since the
: switch to 7.0?

Yes, I csup the ports tree and portupgrade -aR every day

: When I did, all sorts of things broke, because the non-
: upgraded shared libraries were linked against libpthread, but the new
: ones were against libthr, which meant that applications linking to both
: old and new libraries broke in ugly ways (similarly for bumped versions
: of libc, libm and libz, and probably others). As far as I can tell, the
: only way to proceed is (a) exit X and fall back to a "core"-only console
: environment, and then portupgrade -af (probably --batch, so you don't
: have to nurse it through all of the configs). The trouble with *that* is
: that if anything doesn't build properly, there's no way to tell
: portupgrade not to rebuild all of the pieces that *did* build OK the last
: time (it has no breakpoint/restart mechanism). So you can use
: portupgrade --batch -akf, and then fix broken ports by hand, if you can.

Did you make delete-old-libs? I did and man that's a mistake, it that
broke everything. I had to copy the old libs from a box I didn't
upgrade.

You'll need to rebuild everyting if you delted old libs

:
: Having been working my way through this maze for a week or two, I'm half
: of the opinion that I should have just made a list of the installed ports
: (i.e., ls /var/db/pkg), backed up /usr/local/etc, and then blown /usr/
: local clean away, and then portinstalled from my list.
:
: 7.0 seems beautifully stable in and of itself. It's certainly great for
: server applications, and it's probably fine if you're doing a clean
: install. There's library version bumpage to watch out for if you try to
: upgrade in place, though. Particularly for a desktop, where the amount
: of ports-based stuff tends to be *large*.

Andrew Reilly

On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:17:43 +0000, Max Haus wrote:

> Howard Goldstein wrote:
>> On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:00:54 GMT, A2B <a2b@backagain.com> wrote:
>> : does xorg work with all the ports
>>
>> Starting at 7.02b2 to 3 from as recently as last sunday has been solid
>> on the desktop here. I rebuilt all of my ports for xorg 7 months ago
>> however. If you're already at xorg7 it should be a painless source
>> update.
>>
>>
> Likewise. I upgraded to xorg 7 a few months back. I use gdm for my
> desktop. Two weeks ago I upgraded from FreeBSD 6.3 to 7.0 BETA2. No
> problems.

Yes, but have you attempted to upgrade your installed ports since the
switch to 7.0? When I did, all sorts of things broke, because the non-
upgraded shared libraries were linked against libpthread, but the new
ones were against libthr, which meant that applications linking to both
old and new libraries broke in ugly ways (similarly for bumped versions
of libc, libm and libz, and probably others). As far as I can tell, the
only way to proceed is (a) exit X and fall back to a "core"-only console
environment, and then portupgrade -af (probably --batch, so you don't
have to nurse it through all of the configs). The trouble with *that* is
that if anything doesn't build properly, there's no way to tell
portupgrade not to rebuild all of the pieces that *did* build OK the last
time (it has no breakpoint/restart mechanism). So you can use
portupgrade --batch -akf, and then fix broken ports by hand, if you can.

Having been working my way through this maze for a week or two, I'm half
of the opinion that I should have just made a list of the installed ports
(i.e., ls /var/db/pkg), backed up /usr/local/etc, and then blown /usr/
local clean away, and then portinstalled from my list.

7.0 seems beautifully stable in and of itself. It's certainly great for
server applications, and it's probably fine if you're doing a clean
install. There's library version bumpage to watch out for if you try to
upgrade in place, though. Particularly for a desktop, where the amount
of ports-based stuff tends to be *large*.

Cheers,

--
Andrew

Balwinder S Dheeman

On 12/07/2007 05:47 AM, Max Haus wrote:
> Howard Goldstein wrote:
>> On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:00:54 GMT, A2B <a2b@backagain.com> wrote:
>> : does xorg work with all the ports
>>
>> Starting at 7.02b2 to 3 from as recently as last sunday has been solid
>> on the desktop here. I rebuilt all of my ports for xorg 7 months ago
>> however. If you're already at xorg7 it should be a painless source
>> update.
>>
>
> Likewise. I upgraded to xorg 7 a few months back. I use gdm for my
> desktop. Two weeks ago I upgraded from FreeBSD 6.3 to 7.0 BETA2. No
> problems.

I did many experiments while I was trying to make my Intel/PRO 2200BG
card work smoothly with FreeBSD -- upgraded from 6.0-RELEASE to 6.1,
then 6.2 and even 7.0-CURRENT, downgraded to 6.1-RELEASE, upgraded again
to 7.0-CURRENT; Xorg 7.x stopped working during one downgrade that's why
I again moved to 7.0-CURRENT and now a days I am running 8.0-CURRENT,
Xorg-7.3, KDE-3.5.8 on my DELL Inspiron 4150 without any problems.

FYI, all my lib/compat subdirectories are clean and, or empty; I don't
install pre-compiled packages and I'm patient enough to make the broken
apps work; all this seems quite a tedious job sometimes.

All you have to do is read the /usr/src/UPDATING and /usr/ports/UPDATING
files carefully and follow directions of developers and, or maintainers
of these systems. Moreover, one should know well what one is doing.

As for as stability of 7.0-BETA4 and, or other BETA releases for home
user is concerned -- their is no harm in trying these. The FreeBSD is
community project, developed and, or maintained by users for users, so
the feedback and, or constructive criticism from users is not only
welcomed, but is also appreciated as contribution.

--
Dr Balwinder S "bsd" Dheeman Registered Linux User: #229709
Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe) Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India Gentoo, Fedora, Debian/FreeBSD/XP
Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/ Visit: http://counter.li.org/

Howard Goldstein

On 7 Dec 2007 05:02:53 GMT, Andrew Reilly <andrew-newspost@areilly.bpc-users.org> wrote:
: On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:17:43 +0000, Max Haus wrote:
:
: > Howard Goldstein wrote:
: >> On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:00:54 GMT, A2B <a2b@backagain.com> wrote:
: >> : does xorg work with all the ports
: >>
: >> Starting at 7.02b2 to 3 from as recently as last sunday has been solid
: >> on the desktop here. I rebuilt all of my ports for xorg 7 months ago
: >> however. If you're already at xorg7 it should be a painless source
: >> update.
: >>
: >>
: > Likewise. I upgraded to xorg 7 a few months back. I use gdm for my
: > desktop. Two weeks ago I upgraded from FreeBSD 6.3 to 7.0 BETA2. No
: > problems.
:
: Yes, but have you attempted to upgrade your installed ports since the
: switch to 7.0?

Yes, I csup the ports tree and portupgrade -aR every day

: When I did, all sorts of things broke, because the non-
: upgraded shared libraries were linked against libpthread, but the new
: ones were against libthr, which meant that applications linking to both
: old and new libraries broke in ugly ways (similarly for bumped versions
: of libc, libm and libz, and probably others). As far as I can tell, the
: only way to proceed is (a) exit X and fall back to a "core"-only console
: environment, and then portupgrade -af (probably --batch, so you don't
: have to nurse it through all of the configs). The trouble with *that* is
: that if anything doesn't build properly, there's no way to tell
: portupgrade not to rebuild all of the pieces that *did* build OK the last
: time (it has no breakpoint/restart mechanism). So you can use
: portupgrade --batch -akf, and then fix broken ports by hand, if you can.

Did you make delete-old-libs? I did and man that's a mistake, it that
broke everything. I had to copy the old libs from a box I didn't
upgrade.

You'll need to rebuild everyting if you delted old libs

:
: Having been working my way through this maze for a week or two, I'm half
: of the opinion that I should have just made a list of the installed ports
: (i.e., ls /var/db/pkg), backed up /usr/local/etc, and then blown /usr/
: local clean away, and then portinstalled from my list.
:
: 7.0 seems beautifully stable in and of itself. It's certainly great for
: server applications, and it's probably fine if you're doing a clean
: install. There's library version bumpage to watch out for if you try to
: upgrade in place, though. Particularly for a desktop, where the amount
: of ports-based stuff tends to be *large*.