Reading of FreeBSD Security Information and EOL date for 14.2-R

Thanks. With regard to upgrading to 15.0-RELEASE (when it's released) do you know which is easiest - from 14.2 to 14.x to 15.0-RELEASE, or 15.0-CURRENT to 15.0-RELEASE? Assume I'm happy to run CURRENT.
 
Regarding the "assumed" happiness:
docs.freebsd.org

Chapter 26. Updating and Upgrading FreeBSD

Information about how to keep a FreeBSD system up-to-date with freebsd-update or Git, how to rebuild and reinstall the entire base system, etc
docs.freebsd.org docs.freebsd.org

Someone who wants to run CURRENT should not ask what is the easiest way. Why? Read this:
DutchDaemon

Thread 'Topics about unsupported FreeBSD versions'

The FreeBSD Forums cater primarily to end-users and systems administrators. As such, the Forums focus almost exclusively on FreeBSD versions that are officially supported according to the official FreeBSD website. Since resources are scarce, the FreeBSD Forums strongly suggest that anyone asking questions on the forums run one of the officially supported versions (see the links at the end of this post), for which the installed user base is logically the broadest.

In terms of 'unsupported versions' we make the following distinction:

  1. FreeBSD versions that are...
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scotia said:
Thanks. With regard to upgrading to 15.0-RELEASE (when it's released) do you know which is easiest - from 14.2 to 14.x to 15.0-RELEASE, or 15.0-CURRENT to 15.0-RELEASE? Assume I'm happy to run CURRENT.
Click to expand...
Generally speaking it's easier to stick with supported versions, because that way you can actually ask for help whenever something goes wrong. Don't let names like STABLE & CURRENT fool you; these are developer versions and running them kind of implies that you're on your own. If you're having issues it's kind of expected to try and resolve those on your own and to report back if you suspect that there's an issue with the OS itself.

Within the world of FreeBSD the latest isn't necessarily the greatest. I mean, if you want "easy" you could also consider 13.5 which will be supported until March next year, see that same release overview you linked to in your main post.

Also... "easy" is kind of hard to comment on because it lacks context. I consider building & maintaning my system from source rather easy, but I can well imagine that this can pose quite a few challenges for others. Same with the ports collection: there's also quite a difference between relying on binary packages, or building everything yourself.

But yah, when in doubt... stick with supported releases.
 
Thanks. I'm about to install a new system, will need raid-Z expansion when it becomes supported and don't mind the lack of support and/or risk in the meantime. If upgrading FreeBSD weren't so onerous (in my experience) it would make the fact that should I install 14.2 -RELEASE today it'll be EoL in four months more palatable. I've already embarked on installing 14.2 twice and have fallen at the first hurdle both times (I'm trying a second time so I can document what goes wrong more completely). I'm going to create another post with these struggles but the summary is installing devel/git as my first port dies with:
Code: 
===>   git-2.49.0 depends on executable: curl - not found
===>   curl-8.13.0_2 depends on package: pkgconf>=1.3.0_1 - not found
===>   curl-8.13.0_2 depends on package: pkgconf>=1.3.0_1 - not found
*** Error code 1
Anyway that's to be posted soon unless I can find a good answer on the Interwebs.
 
scotia said:
Thanks. I'm about to install a new system, will need raid-Z expansion when it becomes supported and don't mind the lack of support and/or risk in the meantime. If upgrading FreeBSD weren't so onerous (in my experience) it would make the fact that should I install 14.2 -RELEASE today it'll be EoL in four months more palatable. I've already embarked on installing 14.2 twice and have fallen at the first hurdle both times (I'm trying a second time so I can document what goes wrong more completely). I'm going to create another post with these struggles but the summary is installing devel/git as my first port dies with:
Code: 
===>   git-2.49.0 depends on executable: curl - not found
===>   curl-8.13.0_2 depends on package: pkgconf>=1.3.0_1 - not found
===>   curl-8.13.0_2 depends on package: pkgconf>=1.3.0_1 - not found
*** Error code 1
Anyway that's to be posted soon unless I can find a good answer on the Interwebs.
Click to expand...

It's much easier to use packages - particularly if you use quarterly packages and track the minor version of FreeBSD used by the build servers. Currently 14.X packages are built against 14.2, so that isn't going to be a problem. When you switch to 15.0, pkg will most likely do the right thing, but you should still check UPDATING.
 
Upgrading from 14.2-RELEASE to 14.3-RELEASE will probably take around 5 minutes. It's not especially onerous.
 
scotia said:
If upgrading FreeBSD weren't so onerous (in my experience) it would make the fact that should I install 14.2 -RELEASE today it'll be EoL in four months more palatable.
Click to expand...
Well my experience pretty much the opposite, assuming your hardware is good and supported. Updating from source and building packages can be timeconsuming (which some may consider onerous) but doing binary and accepting prebuilt packages is not.

You say you are "installing", so use ZFS (take the default installer options) and then learn about Boot Environments (BEs).
Install to ZFS, use freebsd-update to apply any interim patch updates to the base system, use quarterly packages, create new BE prior to updating, verify everything works.
Upgrading across releases (14.2-RELEASE to 14.3-RELEASE, 13.x-RELEASE to 14.X-RELEASE etc):
If you are using binary packages and GENERIC kernel, freebsd-update and pkg both accept a chroot option. That allows you to manually create a new BE, mount it and do the updates into that new BE. When you are done, that means your currently running BE is completely PRE-upgrade and you have a new BE that is completely POST-upgrade, completely coherent. Activate the new one, reboot once and you are in an upgraded system. If it doesn't work, you roll back to the previous one.
Onerous? Not to me.
Above is just my opinion.
 
I've been using FreeBSD since about 4.4 and I think around the 8/9/10s I had to, for example, post-OS upgrade take a list of all my installed ports, deinstall them and reinstall them. Which became painful. I have not done a lot of upgrading since.

As to the eternal packages vs ports decision I tend to go with ports because were I to start with packages, I guarantee one day I'll need to build from ports and then when I need help the answer will be - "you shouldn't have mixed packages and ports". Maybe that's been resolved recently too. Anyway I'm building my new 14.2 system now. Thanks.
 
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