Updating a new installation

R

realtime

Earlier in the year when FreeBSD 9.1 was just being released, I excitedly got to work building a new development server. A couple months ago, I rebuilt my gateway server with a clean 9.1 image, although re-installing several times while testing various things in a fresh new environment.

In both situations, I found myself utilizing the last step of the installation to drop into a shell and running freebsd-update to immediately receive all updates. It seemed perfectly logical to me that this should be the absolute first action of any internet-capable system.

But what seems strange is why this action isn't at minimum a built-in selection within the installation process. Once the network is configured, here's the option to update your system to the current version. Logic required for matching point and version releases may be required, perhaps optionally to include new point and version releases as a legitimate immediate upgrade.

Anyway, you see where I'm going with this. To new users especially, the manual step to freebsd-update is not an obvious one. It is important though...right? Thoughts, ideas, corrections?
 
I think that's actually a good idea. But only if it's presented as an option. I usually do a quick install of a RELEASE to update it later with my own -STABLE version. Running a freebsd-update would be a useless step for me. That said, I have no problems with the question at the end of the install.
 
This type of functionality should go in to sysutils/bsdconfig that is going to be the standard post-install configuration utility in the upcoming versions of FreeBSD. I'm not sure if it's already planned to be included in FreeBSD 10.
 
I'm not too sure about all this. Because let's also keep in mind that FreeBSD isn't targeted at the common end users. In some sense there is an expectation that people read the handbook, and will realize that keeping your system up to date is an important aspect.

My doubts come from the fact that although a command like freebsd-update will normally simply run without issues you can't ignore the possibility that something can go wrong. In which case it would be better to have the users full attention instead of merely making it look as if updating your system is a casual thing to do, because it isn't.
 
I think you may have missed the point of the new installation environment. At this stage, when least configured, unexpected issues should be minimized. Updating is usually a great action to take at this step.

With respect to your solid stance on targeting dutiful FreeBSD systems administrators, it would seem the evolution of FreeBSD is calling for more accessibility in its userbase. A bit more automation of modern tasks isn't necessarily a bad thing!
 
There's a question at the end of the install that asks if you'd like to make some final changes. Adding an update option to that shouldn't be too difficult. People that don't want it can simply skip it. It should probably just run freebsd-update so the currently installed version gets the latest security updates. I don't think it would be a good idea to upgrade to the next major or minor version this way. You'd probably be better off downloading the latest major or minor version installation image.

Updating to the next minor or major version could perhaps be added to the aforementioned bsdconfig. The tool is supposedly aimed to be used when the system is already up and running and you want to make some configuration changes. So I think a major/minor upgrade makes more sense to run from there.
 
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