New section for older FreeBSD in forums.

Just to be clear. When I write Redhat, it means CentOS. When I write Ubuntu, I mentioned the Desktop variant, not sever. Having a frozen system that only benefit from security updates and the rest remains the same is not that bad. If I developed a software linked with Qt 5.1 using gcc 5.3 shipped with the distribution I could sure it will works until the distribution is EOL. I could make my software in maintenance mode and benefits the most from it util next LTS release. If I develop for rolling distribution like Arch, I have to constantly test and patch my software for the latest Qt version and make sure it will compile with latest gcc. It's wasting so much energy and time. Life is short.

I do not favor Ubuntu but I very want someday FreeBSD will have LTS release. I know nothing about the kernel, so I only said about userspace libraries and toolchain. When I said FreeBSD 12.0 break things, I do not said about ABI but the upgrade process break things. Setting up development environment is wasting time, too. Especially when you have to do it often. I found freebsd-update is unreliable. It worked for someone doesn't mean it worked for everyone. It also take so many steps to do just one thing that apt-get dist-upgrade then reboot and everything done.

I do not want to bash you. I only want you to change and improvements to make life easier.
 
I unwatched this thread, so I will not receive dislike notification for my post. The above is my last words about the problem. Bye.
 
I think it was SirDice who suggested that people who maintain very old systems probably don't need help here, and I agree with that. If someone thinks they might find rare information here about an old system, I think they can always post as a general or off-topic thread, but generally speaking I'd probably send them over to Classic Comp.

Also, there seems to be some assumption going on in some posts. ;) Many of us are interested in computers as they are placed in society and general history. Our reasons for running them are quite different than the average Internet businessman or persons with economics interests.

I would also point out that not all commercial hardware (or software) is simply and safely upgraded. When there is a lot at stake, such as in the manufacturing industry, it is not always prudent to shut down a money-making process and take a chance. In the end, without a case relevant OPSEC it is difficult to comment intelligently on vulnerabilities.
 
  • Thanks
Reactions: PMc
badbrain said:
I do not favor Ubuntu but I very want someday FreeBSD will have LTS release. I know nothing about the kernel, so I only said about userspace libraries and toolchain. When I said FreeBSD 12.0 break things, I do not said about ABI but the upgrade process break things. Setting up development environment is wasting time, too. Especially when you have to do it often. I found freebsd-update is unreliable. It worked for someone doesn't mean it worked for everyone. It also take so many steps to do just one thing that apt-get dist-upgrade then reboot and everything done.
Click to expand...

I install FreeBSD 8.0 and then I upgrade to all minor and major versions. Currently the image uses FreeBSD release 12.0-p5. I use it for servers and every upgrade is done without ANY issue. I keep a server as an "image" that hosts no active services and when I want to install it in a new server I use dump/restore. Setup of a new server takes less than 15 minutes. Currently I use this "image" for 58 servers. I think most issues that people are talking about is for desktop usage.
 
This would all seem to be a bit of a storm in a teacup. When users with "old" FreeBSD versions appear asking for help, they get help to upgrade to a supported "new" FreeBSD version.

Trying to provide help to maintain an old, unsupported version is not a simple proposition as I know full well from bitter experience unless it is frozen in time and removed from general and internet access.

I also agree with Sir Dice, those who do need to maintain such a system know what they're doing and I wouldn't expect to see them asking users for help in this forum.
 
trev said:
This would all seem to be a bit of a storm in a teacup. When users with "old" FreeBSD versions appear asking for help, they get help to upgrade to a supported "new" FreeBSD version.

Trying to provide help to maintain an old, unsupported version is not a simple proposition as I know full well from bitter experience unless it is frozen in time and removed from general and internet access.

I also agree with Sir Dice, those who do need to maintain such a system know what they're doing and I wouldn't expect to see them asking users for help in this forum.
Click to expand...
Sorry for the delay in responding (and perhaps unintentionally re-opening this discussion) but I was offline in the Mojave Desert for a month...

Over a decade ago, the freebsd-eol@ mailing list was created because some well-known users wanted to provide peer-to-peer support for EOL'd FreeBSD versions. After the first post, almost everything was spam except for a few people who had historical interest in older FreeBSD releases.

There are a number of people who support older FreeBSD versions. We have independently solved a number of problems (such as the "getting a current ports tree to build on FreeBSD 8.x" mentioned above), untimely removal of some ports (lang/php56 comes to mind) and so on. If I see a post here from someone with an issue I've already solved, I'll respond with something that is hopefully helpful. But don't expect me (or others) to go research a new issue with an older FreeBSD release.

This whole area had become much more of a concern to me when it looked like FreeBSD 12 was going to have a bizarrely short lifespan (archive.org link), but that was reverted without any fanfare (at least that I noticed) and it now gets the expected 5-year lifecycle.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top