FreeBSD 9.0 vs 9.1

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kr651129

As a normal desktop user do I need to be concerned with the non-major releases and where would I locate the change log to see if I need to upgrade. If I do want to upgrade is it better to do a clean install or can I just do an in-system-update. If the later is fine, what is the correct process?
 
It's easy and safe to upgrade with freebsd-update. Upgrading to a new release of the same major version (9.x) also means none of your installed ports will break, since FreeBSD is ABI compatible within major releases.
 
Use freebsd-update(8) if you are using the GENERIC kernel and you haven't done any customizations to the system with /etc/src.conf. Otherwise use the source based upgrade as described in the handbook.
 
kr651129 said:
As a normal desktop user do I need to be concerned with the non-major releases and where would I locate the change log to see if I need to upgrade.
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Non major release upgrades offer tons of bug fixes and also some new features. Once a new release is out make sure that you read through the release notes. That should give you a rough idea.
 
9.1 has not been released yet (it's RC1 right now). It should be released in a month or maybe a little more.

You *may* care as it offers bug fixes, the beadm ZFS boot environment, improved wireless networking and a KMS/GEM port.
 
The biggest advances have been in compatibility. Using clang(1) as the default compiler for ports wasn't very practical in 9.0 but is doable in 9.1 if you exclude the few ports that fail to compile and use gcc(1) for those. No need to recompile your ports right away in my opinion.
 
Read /usr/src/UPDATING before trying the upgrade. Normally the ABI doesn't break but in the rare cases some kernel structures have changed it will be noted in UPDATING. As far as I know this isn't the case with 9.0 -> 9.1 though.
 
Kernel programming interface is not part of the ABI :) There are few ports that depend on kernel data structures and they break all the time when the kernel data structures change from minor FreeBSD version to another, for example sysutils/lsof. ABI compatibility is really only the userspace binary and shared library compatibility, limited to what the base OS provides. Shared libraries provided by installed ports are outside the ABI.

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2012-August/069264.html
 
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