From 12.2 to 13

M

mefizto

Greetings all,

when transitioning between different versions, is it better to freshly install the new version, or to upgrade the older version?

Or does it not make any difference?

Kindest regards,

M
 
Hi Zirias,

thank you for the reply. Could you please explain the term "windows thinking"? Did you mean "windows tinting"?

In any event, I do not understand either term.

Kindest regards,

M
 
I just went from 12.2-RELEASE to 13.0-RELEASE. My lack of freebsd knowledge got me in some troubles now smooth sailing.
 
mefizto said:
Hi Zirias,

thank you for the reply. Could you please explain the term "windows thinking"? Did you mean "windows tinting"?

In any event, I do not understand either term.

Kindest regards,

M
Click to expand...

This means that you don't have to do a new installation when a new major release comes out. Because with Windows it was or is so that one is preferred with a major update or even forced to reinstall Windows, since it often comes to problems after the update.
 
Don't think there is a 12.3 (yet?). I think Zirias means "Windows (TM)" thinking i.e. that it is better to re-install a fresh version rather than upgrade, but I've never done that myself (certainly not for newer versions!) Been more a question of having to buy new hardware to keep up with the RAM requirements of newer versions of Windows, but that is truer of the "richer" desktop environments these days anyway.

I'd go for upgrade BUT if you have a test machine or two try on those.

It's a very fresh release, and a .0 release, so there are likely to be problems. If you want an easy life - stay on 12.x for now.

Let others bleed on the bleeding edge for a little while.
 
I use dump/restore and a shell script to build new servers. My "image" was first build 10 years ago (if I remember correctly with FreeBSD 8). So this "image" was updated multiple times with minor and major versions of FreeBSD without issues and my installation is almost fresh as a new installation. Now I run FreeBSD 13.0. After major updates and after I rebuild the ports I always run these commands:

make -DBATCH_DELETE_OLD_FILES delete-old
make -DBATCH_DELETE_OLD_FILES delete-old-libs
 
Hi Alexander88207, richardtoohey2,

thank you for the explanation of the term, if only Zirais used "W". :confused:

I have used 12.3 since I usually stay on the previous version until XX.1 is out, and by that time, the next minor will be out. I asked at this time since there are a lot of "upgrade" posts so I though I will get a response what is the advantage, since so far I always re-installed. I have a script, so the re-installation is rather quick and painless, most of the time takes rebuilding all the ports. But, I understand they have to be re-built anyway.

Hi CyberCr33p, drhowarddrfine,

Thank you for your replies.

Kindest regards,

M
 
I too, am waiting to see what happens with other people, and considering waiting for 13.1. I have laptops that I use for various purposes, and on those it doesn't matter. But my main workstation would be irksome to restore from backup. Also, there is an upgrade of ZFS for 13.x, so if you have ZFS, you would think of upgrading that too. Though to be honest, I don't think I've ever had problems with a XX.0 release. (Though I don't think we've done one on production servers, but on my workstations, it's gone smoothly.)
 
The only advantage I see in reinstalling from scratch is the speed. Major upgrades are slow and can take a few hours, depending on the sets installed (having /usr/src/ to upgrade typically takes a long time), while a fresh install is a matter of minutes. It may be more convenient to reinstall if you have little configuration and your data on a separate drive. I have the opposite, so I prefer upgrading and I find it reliable, more than most Linux upgrades.

"Windows thinking" - it's better to reinstall because the system gets bloated and slow with time.
"Linux thinking" - it's better to reinstall because upgrades often end up in a broken system so I you will have to reinstall anyway.
"FreeBSD thinking" - do whatever is more convenient to you!
 
I have three different procedures:
* On bare metal machine ==>Upgrade
* On VM: backup home, etc and restore ==> Install
* On VM with custom/personal patch/code, i.e. VM as a developing/programming machine ==> Upgrade

On VM, I keep /src /doc /ports on different drive (secondary). Thus when I reinstall, I won't loose fetched/checkout sources.
 
mefizto said:
Did you mean "windows tinting"?
Click to expand...
This is how I think of "Windows Thinking", and this is what I was doing in Windows:
New version, something goes wrong, bit-rot (*), or deleting wrong files => fdisk, format, and install it again.

(*) Windows Bit-rot is generally is the consequence of Registry. Contrary to /etc (UNIX) , you just can't delete Registry (NTUSER.dat, etc) and start from scratch
 
mefizto said:
when transitioning between different versions, is it better to freshly install the new version, or to upgrade the older version?
Click to expand...
I have various systems that have been upgraded over time from 9.1 to 9.2 to 9.3 to 10.1, 10.2 etc. all the way up to 12.2. This is usually not a problem. But it does depend on the system, sometimes I take the opportunity of an upgrade to wipe the system and do a fresh new install because I want to set things up differently.
 
mefizto said:
I have a script, so the re-installation is rather quick and painless, most of the time takes rebuilding all the ports. But, I understand they have to be re-built anyway.
Click to expand...
Unless you need non standard options for your ports you can save a lot of time by installing from packages instead.
 
Two things I noticed that are different from 12.2 and 13.0 is the fuse.ko module does not appear to be available in 13.0 [I can still use filesystems in userspace, such as rclone mounts, so perhaps this functionality is built into the kernel now?] and this directive in loader.conf does not appear to have any effect: kern.vt.fb.default_mode="1024x768"

Perhaps there is a different way to set the VT driver console resolution....
 
The kern.vt.fb.default_mode works for me in /boot/loader.conf. I use it because the console font size is too small for my aging eyes, so I have it set to 800x600. As for fusefs, I found it was pulled in by something else, in my case, fusefs-jmtpfs, a package which allows me to connect my Android phone to the computer. I don't recollect every using fuse.ko as opposed to fusefs, but I could easily be wrong.
 
scottro said:
The kern.vt.fb.default_mode works for me in /boot/loader.conf. I use it because the console font size is too small for my aging eyes, so I have it set to 800x600. As for fusefs, I found it was pulled in by something else, in my case, fusefs-jmtpfs, a package which allows me to connect my Android phone to the computer. I don't recollect every using fuse.ko as opposed to fusefs, but I could easily be wrong.
Click to expand...
I did a kldstat and found fusefs.ko is loaded, maybe fuse.ko is deprecated. Since I didn't explicitly load fusefs, I wonder where it was loaded from.

I'll try setting the resolution to 800x600 and see if that works [1024x768 was definitely smaller in 12.2, but I can just eyeball it to a larger resolution if its settable at any resolution].

It is settable to 800x600. However, I know 1024x768 was definitely smaller text, larger resolution in 12.2, regardless of my ability to prove anything.
 
There is something very strange going on with the VT driver in FreeBSD 13.0.

I just compiled a custom kernel with white on blue, as I always do with a fresh install and it didn't actually change the foreground and background colors.

This is the kernel config file:
Code: 
include GENERIC
ident BSDKERNEL

options TERMINAL_NORM_ATTR=(FG_WHITE|BG_BLUE)
options TERMINAL_KERN_ATTR=(FG_YELLOW|BG_BLUE)

Everything compiled and installed like normal, but the actual colors didn't change.
The VT driver is loaded in loader.conf. I did notice a driver called "efifb" that I have never seen before. From DMESG VT: Replacing driver "efifb" with new "fb".
 
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