Re: Fast releases demand binary updates.. (Was: Release schedule for 2006)

Jo Rhett wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 17, 2005 at 06:55:03PM -0500, Chuck Swiger wrote:
>>YMMV.  I burned a 6.0 release from the ISO image, and did a binary upgrade on an
>>IBM ThinkPad (T.34? maybe), which worked perfectly.  All of the 5.x binaries,
>>including X11, KDE, printing, Mozilla, etc worked just fine.
> 
> There are no ISO for patch releases.

FreeBSD releases new .ISO images several times a year, but you've got the tools 
to make .ISO images of patch releases yourself, if you want to.  I don't think 
that the FreeBSD project can shorten the release cycle below a month or so, 
which means that patch releases are always going to be on the (b)leading edge...

> And taking systems offline for a .1
> update gets annoying fast.  Dealing with all the file comparisons which are
> exactly the same except for the CVS tag takes hours for no good reason.
> Multiple many hours by hundreds of systems, and you could easily have a
> full time person just doing FreeBSD upgrades.

Using a build server as a testbed and to generate new packages or even a new 
kernel + world will reduce the amount of work required, but FreeBSD does require 
some level of administration and maintenance.

>> Upgrading the ports from there was somewhat annoying
> 
> I don't care about ports, just the base OS.  Ports we've built the
> infrastructure to handle properly, and very few ports are installed on
> production systems.

I've got firewalls with a single-digit number of ports installed, but anything 
else seems to acquire 100-200 or so.

>> Now, if you want to talk about upgrading to intermediate patch releases, you've
>> got a valid point there.  :-)
>  
> That is exactly the point.  Both .01 and .1 releases are annoying.

I'm with you on this, but suggesting solutions is more useful than just noting 
the existence of problems.

-- 
-Chuck