On Sunday 18 March 2007 14:20, RStachowiak wrote: > > NO! (at least, not in general...) > > Re-read faq5.html a few times until it all makes sense... > > > > You UPGRADE by installing the closest available binary. Always. > > The question was not about normal upgrade procedure (which I'm > perfectly aware of ) but about internal working of system during > upgrade phase to let me understand it better and comprehend all > corner cases. > > Also I'm not convinced that 'Always' is the ultimate tool, look at > the sub question 1.2, but please correct me if I'm wrong. > > Just to remind: this is not discussion about 'how to do upgrade > default OpenBSD installation' :) > > Building from source is only to update to a newer -stable, or for > making >
You may not be convinced, but Nick is still right. When you upDATE from A.B-RELEASE to A.B-STABLE, you can do it through source. When you upGRADE from A.B to A.(B+1) or from A.B-CURRENT to A.(B+1)-RELEASE (or a newer -CURRENT), you should always do it by installing the closest binary upgrade. You are correct in assuming that there is a way to do an upGRADE through source since the developers obviously do it, but unlike most users (i.e. you and me) the developers actually know what they are doing and know the system well enough to do a source upGRADE correctly (and with the least amount of pain). If it is something you *really* want to learn how to do, you'll be on your own and as many people have tried to point out, you'll spend weeks if not months in solitary agony trying to figure it out. > > new code. Upgrading by source is only to inflict pain upon > > yourself if your life is too easy. Don't share the pain, however. > > > > HOWEVER, if your goal is to grab a -current and then move to > > 4.1-release when it comes out, you may well be too late now. > > Development has now resumed, the developers are working on 4.2 > > now. If you don't know how to tell, don't. > > So to further discuss -current case, sub questions are: > 1.1. is release date on cvs head tagged or announced somehow? Everything in cvs has a date stamp and you can easily pull the whole source tree as it existed at a particular date and time. Tags are like additional metadata used to group files into sets and allow easy access to the whole set. The cvs logs announce the details on all changes done to files including date stamps... -so I'm probably not understanding your question or you're not very familiar with cvs. > 1.2. being on current and missing 'switch point' and then doing a > binary upgrade will (or rather can) result in system breakage, true? > (that's why typical 'use binary' answer won't work here (and why I'm > so inclined to learn more about process)) Mild breakage from one binary of -CURRENT to the next has happened but this is to be expected since you're talking about the place where new development work is being done. If you're ever curious about the the breakage and how to handle it, the up to date answers are listed in the FAQ http://www.openbsd.org/faq/current.html > 3. so if 2==true, what are other steps done by the people using > -current (looks like many of them are) do before/during/after upgrade > ? Maybe I should seek advice on different OpenBSD ml? Nope. You've got the right mailing list but like many people, you didn't realize that volumes of accurate, up to date documentation are just waiting for you to read (and understand) them. If there are necessary steps in a current to newer current upgrade, you'll find them listed in the link above. > 4. where can I find more information about upgrade scripts used > during binary upgrades? someone has to write them, maintain them, > etc. You ought to be familiar with man release(8) -no pun intended. ;-) It's the best place to start learning about the release process and there's some more info in FAQ-5. kind regards, jcr
