FreeBSD 13.1 in beta...

freezr

freezr

Hi Folks,

this is my very first time... But what does it mean is it in beta?
Should we wait until it is going to be "released"?

Honestly is still very confusing for me the way FreeBSD moves forward... 😓

Thanks!
 
You can use it. It's better than using STABLE, which is good enough for most purposes. The biggest inconvenience with STABLE, is that it doesn't have the ability to update the system by using freebsd-update. With a pre-release or upcoming release, you can upgrade beta and RC versions with freebsd-update, until time comes that it's a production release. You can wait for an RC branch, if you want.

Only if you're using a high end production environment, you may want to consider not using it.

My new upgrading strategy is to use freebsd-update for minor releases, then use a clean build for major releases. So, I plan to use freebsd-update from 13.0 to 13.1 and 13.2, and for beta and RC versions between these. I'll use a clean install for going to 14.0.
 
freezr said:
But what does it mean is it in beta?
Click to expand...
It means it's the first 'official' release of the next version. It may still contain bugs, hence the beta life cycle.

freezr said:
Should we wait until it is going to be "released"?
Click to expand...
It depends. You are very much invited to test the beta in order to root out any of the bugs that might be present. But it likely will contain bugs so don't test it on anything important. If you just want to have a stable system, wait until the official release.
 
SirDice

I thought a simple freebsd-install fetch install would work...

But from the HB I noticed that is used this command instead:

Code: 
# freebsd-update -r 9.1-RELEASE upgrade

Is this meaning that in FreeBSD the release upgrade is only "declarative" and not generic?

Should I use this command then?

Code: 
# freebsd-update -r 13.1-RELEASE upgrade

Thanks,

f.
 
Something got wrong... 🤔

Code: 
freebsd-update -r 13.1-RELEASE upgrade
Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 2 mirrors found.
Fetching metadata signature for 13.0-RELEASE from update2.freebsd.org... done.
Fetching metadata index... done.
Inspecting system... done.

The following components of FreeBSD seem to be installed:
kernel/generic kernel/generic-dbg src/src world/base world/lib32

The following components of FreeBSD do not seem to be installed:
world/base-dbg world/lib32-dbg

Does this look reasonable (y/n)? y

Fetching metadata signature for 13.1-RELEASE from update2.freebsd.org... failed.
Fetching metadata signature for 13.1-RELEASE from update1.freebsd.org... failed.
No mirrors remaining, giving up.

This may be because upgrading from this platform (amd64)
or release (13.1-RELEASE) is unsupported by freebsd-update. Only
platforms with Tier 1 support can be upgraded by freebsd-update.
See https://www.freebsd.org/platforms/index.html for more info.

If unsupported, FreeBSD must be upgraded by source.

🤷‍♂️😓😔
 
freezr said:
Honestly is still very confusing for me the way FreeBSD moves forward
Click to expand...
The software development release cycle of ALPHA, BETA, RC (release candidates) and then RELEASE etc. is pretty old and I don't think FreeBSD does it any differently to other projects?

For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle

It's good to play/test with upcoming not-yet-finished releases (like BETAs and RCs) but if you aren't confident about doing so it might be easier/less stressful to stick with the RELEASE version. Anything I want to be running day-in-day-out I'll use RELEASE for, but I will test BETA/RC versions to make sure everything I use FreeBSD for still seems to work before the next release.
 
Upgrading to the 13.1-BETA was a disaster on the virtual machine: constant crashes, missing free space, eventually the VM died by itself I hope to be able to recover the VM next Monday.

The procedure as newbie looks a bit convoluted I hope to not mess up also with the real installation... 🤞
 
Eventually I made it, has been pretty cumbersome based on my previous experience with other operative systems... Now I am worried that I am going to do the same procedure several time till 13.1-RELEASE... 😩
 
I don’t think FreeBSD is for you; no-one is forcing you to use it or to post about your “painful” experiences here.

Don’t mean that rudely - the BSDs don’t seem to “click” with some people and there’s plenty of other choices out there.
 
yu shan wei said:
升级到13.1-BETA1:

uname -a
FreeBSD sdf.xx.cn 13.0-RELEASE-p3 FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE-p3 #0: Tue Jun 29 19:46:20 UTC 2021 root@amd64-builder.daemonology.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/amd64.amd64/sys/GENERIC amd64咋的了？
Click to expand...

Welcome to FreeBSD Forums. From <https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=262470#c3>:

… Did you remember to restart the operating system as an essential part of a freebsd-update routine? …
Click to expand...

Please share output from this command:

freebsd-version -kru

If you need help with freebsd-update(8), please see <https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/cutting-edge/#freebsdupdate-upgrade>, in particular:

1647079589915.png
 
freezr said:
… cumbersome based on my previous experience with other operative systems …
Click to expand...

True. There's work in progress to bring ease of use, hopefully some time in 2022. Keyword: PkgBase.

forums.freebsd.org

PkgBase

… how to safely update the system (regardless of how far out of date) reliably. … Let's assume that PkgBase is the way forward. and so on. https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-pkgbase In addition to the list, there's sometimes discussion of PkgBase in IRC for FreeBSD...
forums.freebsd.org forums.freebsd.org

It's on the roadmap:

forums.freebsd.org

Technology Roadmap

https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/technology-roadmap/ Enjoy.
forums.freebsd.org forums.freebsd.org

freezr said:
… VI (why not EE?), what a disaster...

Is this painful procedure a punishment? …
Click to expand...

I feel your pain.

github.com

Ask whether the default system-wide editor should be ee or vi · Issue #3 · yangzhong-freebsd/lua-httpd

Implementation Something like this: Which command-line editor should be the system-wide default? ee (easy editor) vi I don't know This system-wide default will apply to sh. Per-user defaults for ot...
github.com github.com
  • I don't expect the feature to be implemented in that repo, but it was as good a place as any to attempt a rational approach.
Now, please be prepared for possible trampling of this topic …
 
richardtoohey2 said:
I don’t think FreeBSD is for you; no-one is forcing you to use it or to post about your “painful” experiences here.

Don’t mean that rudely - the BSDs don’t seem to “click” with some people and there’s plenty of other choices out there.
Click to expand...

I kindly disagree, the updating process is quite convoluted and required a couple of rebooting. The documentation doesn't provide enough information, luckily I was half prepared, but what happened later was totally unexpected.

I am not sure why FreeBSD patches the system rather than downloading all the packages, to avoid bandwidth? It took a lot of time too.

Nothing delicate as an OS upgrade looks intuitive or doable the very first time, even the most polish one, there are people with a lot of experience that a certain point lost the sight if someone works fine or not, they just know what they have to do, it is an automation or the strength of the habit; that's apply to me as well, I have of plenty experience with other operative systems, windows is even worst, Debian is enough easy although it is faster fresh installation rather than download everything from Internet.

There is a description in the marketing section of the portal that says: "FreeBSD is easy to install" but forgot to add "but is hard to upgrade"... 😜
 
grahamperrin said:
I feel your pain.

github.com

Ask whether the default system-wide editor should be ee or vi · Issue #3 · yangzhong-freebsd/lua-httpd

Implementation Something like this: Which command-line editor should be the system-wide default? ee (easy editor) vi I don't know This system-wide default will apply to sh. Per-user defaults for ot...
github.com github.com
  • I don't expect the feature to be implemented in that repo, but it was as good a place as any to attempt a rational approach.
Now, please be prepared for possible trampling of this topic …
Click to expand...

Ahahaha Thanks! 😁

A lot of Linux distro removed VI as default editor if not the package itself.
VI/VIM should be put optionally this modern days, computers are approached also by people like me without any informatics background but just curiosity; I don't need to learn VI in order to edit a file, I can understand is an heritage from the past but looks also intentionally malicious... Open-source software should promote the freedom of use also eliminating such useless barrier; EE is easy to use to understand and to use and should be the default editor.
 
freezr said:
Ahahaha … VI/VIM should be put optionally …
Click to expand...

vi must remain integral to FreeBSD. Its presence is assumed, or required, by many things (and people).

▼

forums.freebsd.org

What is your favorite text editor?

I would like to know which text editor you use in FreeBSD, I like vim very much to program, for very simple things I usually use nano. Which one is your favorite? PD: This does not try to be a flame "emacs vs vim" just a nice debate.
forums.freebsd.org forums.freebsd.org
 
freezr said:
A lot of Linux distro removed VI as default editor if not the package itself.
Click to expand...
They pretty much provide vim(-tiny) instead which functions similar. Our Vi, which is (n)vi has never really penetrated the Linux world because it is a "UNIX" util and the GNU world tends to implement their own. Same reason why our awk, our sh and tar hasn't replaced gawk, bash and gtar respectively.

freezr said:
EE is easy to use to understand and to use and should be the default editor.
Click to expand...
From the FreeBSD introduction:
While easy editor [ee] is a great utility for a new user, many more experienced users will find the utility to be limited and time-consuming to use.
Click to expand...
Obviously it is probably good enough for editing config files. Arguably (n)vi is also quite time consuming to use which is why for larger text editing tasks, most people jump to Vim (I personally use (n)vi but need to merge it with tmux and other tools to be effective with it).

The question whether it should be the default is an awkward one. Really it all simply depends on what the EDITOR variable in your .profile script contains by default (so is trivial to change). The question is, are there more beginner FreeBSD users (ee) compared to experienced FreeBSD users (vi) in this community? In Windows or Ubuntu, I would say yes but for something a bit more niche like FreeBSD, I am inclined to say no.
 
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