I don't fully agree, although I agree with parts. Especially, any feedback should be directed to mailing lists, cause only there, it would be helpful.My opinion: People who run CURRENT are alpha testers. They are volunteers, unpaid testers, willing to invest their time into making FreeBSD better. They should not be using support, meaning participating in a support forum makes no sense. They should give feedbook to developers through formal channels. Anyone who uses CURRENT for reasons other than being a volunteer tester is making a big mistake, and that should not be encouraged.
This has been my experience too, and I agree very much with the above.I don't suggest these are reasons for actually giving support here – they aren't, you should be able to solve some problems yourself and shouldn't be afraid of bug trackers and mailing lists when running -CURRENT, that always holds. My point is just that some discussions might still be on-topic here sometimes.
- Sometimes (especially with desktops I guess), you'll get hardware support only in -CURRENT. This happened to me when first trying to use FreeBSD on my desktop, I had to run 11-CURRENT back then.
- If you're working on ports (which seems on-topic here), there's sometimes the need to fully test the builds on your own infrastructure. To do this, you should have -CURRENT (probably just in a virtual machine).
Developers don't seem to want this, so why would they encourage it?For example, listing not only the mailing list, but also other appropriate places to discuss things about -CURRENT etc, where a more chatty conversation than in mailing lists is accepted.
If you're going to bother putting in the work to debug problems, why put it in on the forums and then have to put it in on the bug tracker. Why not just learn to put it in on the bugtracker. Sanctioning discussion on the forums means there's an additional sanctioned discussion area for -CURRENT and now developers, trying to solve problems, now have to check it along with mailing lists and bugtrackers and sift through unsorted chatter instead of structured systems designed to help them. It's like trying to get work done when people want to just chat. People leave work and go to the bar (reddit?) to chat about work.intended for discussion/porting/personal sacrifice/curiosity/etc and while fellow users may offer unaccountable help it is not a substitute for the mailing lists and bug tracker
I can certainly see where you're coming from. I think this could be extended a little further to argue that actually we should remove the FreeBSD Forums altogether - it would be much more useful to have all of the support discussions in one place, and if the same topics keep coming up in an area where developers reside then they can begin to see that documentation or usability needs improving.If you're going to bother putting in the work to debug problems, why put it in on the forums and then have to put it in on the bug tracker. Why not just learn to put it in on the bugtracker. Sanctioning discussion on the forums means there's an additional sanctioned discussion area for -CURRENT and now developers, trying to solve problems, now have to check it along with mailing lists and bugtrackers and sift through unsorted chatter instead of structured systems designed to help them. It's like trying to get work done when people want to just chat. People leave work and go to the bar (reddit?) to chat about work.
If this is the case, then people can use the mailing lists and bug trackers for support and don't need to the forums. We can leave all of the extraneous discussion about why the latest release got delayed, desktop FreeBSD, why someone might choose UFS today, or whatever to places like Reddit.FreeBSD is a professional system for professionals and serious computer enthusiasts
I think this could be extended a little further to argue that actually we should remove the FreeBSD Forums altogether - it would be much more useful to have all of the support discussions in one place, and if the same topics keep coming up in an area where developers reside then they can begin to see that documentation or usability needs improving
This is a very good point. Gentoo suffered badly from this to the point where there was an ethnic slur used to describe the "ooh shiny!" tribe.There is indeed a culture within open-source* to always be running the absolute latest and greatest.
In some ways this kind of works though. Those that are technical enough to be using -CURRENT can likely abstract the differences and don't need to mention it.I think scottro is right...
There is an unwritten rule: if you use -CURRENT, don't mention this.
Sort of newbie trap.
Yeah, its a hard balance. It could be worthwhile checking out what the reddit group is like for us to answer this. Hopefully it isn't hordes of shiniers generating too much noise for legitimate -CURRENT questions.I hate the thought that there may be people with good questions about -CURRENT and whose only outlet is Reddit, but the alternative of inviting hordes of shiniers here is probably worse.
… there is also daemonforums.org, …
… I'm very interested in CURRENT for features. However, I don't use CURRENT, and I won't use it, unless I had additional computers lying around, and physical space to hold them. …
My opinion: People who run CURRENT are alpha testers. They are volunteers, unpaid testers, willing to invest their time into making FreeBSD better.
They should not be using support, …
I never saw these forums purely as a support forum, but also a place for people to discuss around and enthuse about FreeBSD. …
There are very few developers on the forums, …
… if you use -CURRENT, don't mention this.
… the only reason to run -CURRENT is to debug things for -RELEASE …
… the rules for Apple's Beta program direct you to not discuss the Beta on any public forums and only provide feedback through their Feedback Assistant, …
… missed help and communication. Now that there's discord, …
Yesdiscord as in Discord? News to me. Maybe I missed a communication …
https://dev.to/darkain/freebsd-on-discord-30m2discord as in Discord? News to me. Maybe I missed a communication …
I have to install FreeBSD 13 for hardware support, but I go back in 12.2 to have support here (my hardware issue was solved in the new release).
Thanks, after joining I found https://wiki.freebsd.org/Discord … can't tell whether it's official. Now I see https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/what-did-you-think-of-the-freebsd-discord-channel.77182/ – I might plough through that lot. tl;dr Discord's not my thing.
… an unwritten rule: if you use -CURRENT, don't mention this. …
… It seems like a CURRENT section belongs here, but that has too many problems, including being a magnet for distracting comments. …
… It would, I am almost certain, become a place where people post threads about FreeBSD's direction and how X, Y, and Z are wrong. …
… one where it got completely sidetracked …