Re: [tlug] Kana-Problems

[Scott Robbins <scottro@example.com>]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 07:06:12AM +0900, Josh wrote:
> On 21/04/2008, Niels Kobschaetzki <n.kobschaetzki@example.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> If you don't have time to follow changelogs, then you almost certainly
> don't have time to fix a system when a blind update hoses it, right?
> 
> So stop blindly updating.

At least read /usr/ports/UPDATING.  FreeBSD usually--not always--gets
most of the gotchas.  Then if some minor port breaks something, it can
often be solved with a quick, respectful note to the maintainer.  
> 
> >  I do not really expect an update of ports to break my system.


> 
> Then adjust your expectations.

Josh is right on here.  It's highly recommended that one subscribes to
the mailing list for your release, e.g., STABLE and just keep an eye on
what's going on.  
> 
> Remember, you are talking about keeping--in your words--1000+ ports up
> to date. Would you expect to be able to keep 1000 pieces of software
> up to date on a MacOS X or Windows system, with no update ever
> breaking anything?

They're supposed to, aren't they?  

> 
> Modern desktop distros (and I include the BSDs here) are complex
> beasts, with many intertwining tentacles.
> 
> I'd really advocate that you update only security-related stuff
> automatically, which you should be able to do easily by either simply
> trusting the FreeBSD security patches implicitly or by following the
> proper mailing lists (I think Scott gave you info on this). Other
> updates should only happen when you *know* the update fixes a bug or
> provides a feature that you really want.

Actually, I understand the wanting to upgrade the ports.  What I do is,
after running portupgrade, I feed the list of ports, with pkg_replace -V
to a file called ports.txt. Then I look at it.  If I see, for example,
that openoffice, which can take hours, wants to update, I don't. If I
see it's postfix, which is important to me, I look at what's changed.  I
also, with important ports, make a backup first pkg_create -b postfix so
that I can easily back up if it's a problem. 

You have to get a feeling for which ports are likely to be smooth and
which aren't.  For example, if I see firefox needs an update, I'll
blithely do so, especially because I usually use opera.  If I see it's
gcc, I'll definitely do a quick check of UPDATING. 

In reality, what happens is that you get bitten, then you start checking
UPDATING, nothing happens for awhile, you get lazy and of course, that's
the time you should have read it. 

> And I update software when I want something, e.g. I updated to Firefox
> 3 beta because I want the vastly improved resource utilisation it
> offers.
> 
> Other than that, I don't update. And you know what? My machine keeps
> working the way I want it to.

Sounds very boring, but then, you have a toddler to keep you busy. 

-- 
Scott Robbins
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