> "something's up" with the stability of the 5.4 release. If I were to deploy
> a server right now, would a seasoned FreeBSD user use 4.11 or 5.4?
My experience: go 5.3 or 4.11, but avoid 5.4. Here's why: I've
downgraded my main amd64 tower & 386 laptop from 5.4 to 5.3. I've
also abandoned amd64 for i386. (PS ref. `seasoned' I've been with
FreeBSD since before it had release numbers :-)
I havent had time to analyse or dmesg all my problems, but
I got tired of 5.4 & amd64 pain & needed lost functionality
back. Both those boxes are dual boot partitons, but both just had
main 5.4-rel. & spare 5.4-rel for rescue. Now I've wound back to
5.3 & regained my lost functionality, I'll be taking one but Not
both partitions on one or each host, forward to (possibly) 5.4-rel,
or more likely stable or current & amd64 native (for the one box)
again, & analysing problems & fixing &/ or bug reporting with dmesg
etc. But the one thing I will Not be doing is raising all partitions
to 5.4. 5.4-rel is a pain here, 5.3-rel. is better for me.
A few problems I've had include:
rdist works on 5.3 source host, but not from 5.4+amd64
(yes, I'm sure someone's out there will work, but
Mine doesn't (user & su) & does with 5.3, which iis
all that maters to me :-) also rdist depends on
which of rdist & rdist6 & 44bsd-rdist, & which
protocol, & what version other end etc, which is
why I'd not mentioned till now, & yes I know rsync
works too, but I'm comfortable with rdist[6]) &
5.3, not 5.4.
usbd (i386+5.4) fails to recognise my sim card on a USB Cruzer,
but 5.3 works OK
various ports dont work for amd64 (or say they dont even if they do.
ports/ (as usual/ often) is a mess, various broken things, competing
versions & a host of other niggles, (well I use a Lot of
ports, to be precise I use all of
http://berklix.com/~jhs/src/bsd/fixes/FreeBSD/ports/jhs/*/Makefile.local
& life's too short to document & fix all problems,
(+ prob reports dont belong here but in dmesg. or ports@)
make has a problem on amd64 5.4-rel., I reported it, & tested &
reported OK on fixes from Harti Brandt, who wrote
Thu, 2 Jun: I have committed it to RELENG_5. I've
set the MFC timer to two weeks.
GCC 3.4.2 on 5.4-RELEASE has a bug for amd64,
I started avoiding that by putting
CFLAGS= -O0
in /etc/make.conf
More info from:
Message from "David O'Brien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
of "Thu, 02 Jun 2005 01:26:15 PDT."
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I think I had some other problems I can't remember off hand, but I
got tired of agravation so retreated to 5.3-rel. I also run 4.10,
4.11 & various 5.* on other gates, net servers, & internal hosts.
Doubtless 5.4 has loads of great additions over 5.3, doubtless most
of my hastles can be fixed/ avoided/ diagnosed etc, but it was just
too much hastle all at once, hence my "back to 5.3 & forward to
stable on just one partition" dual approach. This is Not a complaint,
I still Really like FreeBSD, I'm just less enthusiastic about
5.4-RELEASE than 5.3. (Perhaps one might find others saying the
opposite probably depends what features one uses).
-
Julian Stacey Net & Sys Eng Consultant, Munich http://berklix.com
Mail in Ascii (Html=Spam). Ihr Rauch = mein allergischer Kopfschmerz.
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