Handbook is conservative.

Alain De Vos

Alain De Vos

In short you can update ,"/usr/ports" & "/usr/src" by 4 ways: http(web), ftp, subversion(svn), git.
Shouldn't handbook explain each way, and this in quarterly and non-quarterly, main version release candidate, and not refer to an appendix.
 
I like to think of the handbook as the general guide. Many times it does not list all possible ways of doing something.
Sometimes a google search will pull up an old version of the handbook. So you need to remember that it is just a reference guide.
There are many sources of FreeBSD information from the source code comments to blogs.

I am sure that any additions to the FreeBSD handbook would be much appreciated.
 
Menelkir said:
Maybe this is what you want:
https://docs.freebsd.org/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/updating-upgrading.html
Click to expand...
Close but not quite up to date. From your link:

Code: 
Before reading this chapter, you should:

Know how to install additional third-party software (Chapter 4, Installing Applications: Packages and Ports).

I'm not sure just how much it's going to change because I have not changed from portsnap fetch update but the whole section about ports is obsolete as is my Tutorial. The Handbook probably much easier to absorb and reflect the change better than the prospects of my Tutorial being worth fsck to newcomers once made.

But it matters not. Odds that I adapt to change and survive 100% in my favor. I am such a fan of Natures Way. ;)
 
Actually, someone should probably "clean up". The handbook was always updated "in place", but at some time, the URLs for languages changed from using a full locale name to just the language code. So, just removing the old documents would already help. Perfect for usability would be some HTTP 301 redirects instead.

As long as the top results on Google lead to outdated versions, at least 80% will read these instead of the correct ones.
 
Phishfry said:
Sometimes a google search will pull up an old version of the handbook.
Click to expand...
AFAIR 5 and 6 releases.

drhowarddrfine said:
No, you should remember not to use Google to find the Handbook.
Click to expand...
I use a simple plaintext (html) file, to store all bookmarks -- a made-up hierarchical organization.
I have a bookmark, pointing to "file:///directory/textfile" in [nearly] all my profiles (browsers).

One of the many benefits of such arrangement:
It's "grep(1)"-able!
 
drhowarddrfine said:
No, you should remember not to use Google to find the Handbook.
Click to expand...
This. Look in the latest version of the handbook first. If that doesn't provide an answer then you should try to google it. Not the other way around. I see way to many new users referring to some howto they found on the internet that turned out to be decades old.
 
Ooh , I just found out how to use git to check out sources & ports,
Code: 
git clone --depth 1 --branch releng/13.0 --single-branch https://git.freebsd.org/src.git /usr/src
git clone --depth 1 --branch 2021Q2 --single-branch https://git.freebsd.org/ports.git /usr/ports
 
Alain De Vos said:
Whereas handbook describes subversion method but not git
Click to expand...
Old version of the handbook.
docs.freebsd.org

Chapter 4. Installing Applications: Packages and Ports

FreeBSD provides two complementary technologies for installing third-party software: the FreeBSD Ports Collection, for installing from source, and packages, for installing from pre-built binaries
docs.freebsd.org docs.freebsd.org
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
 
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