On Mon, Nov 03, 2008 at 12:53:52PM -0600, Steven Susbauer wrote: > Jerry McAllister wrote: > >On Mon, Nov 03, 2008 at 10:01:21PM +0800, Alex Zhang wrote: > > > >>Dear Support: > >> I'm a newcomer and want to install FreeBSD for study. Could you pls let > >>me > >>know which the stable edition of FreeBSD now? > >> > >>And let me know how to subscribe the Q&A list that I prefer. > >> > >>Thanks in advance. > >> > > > >All of this is well documented on the FreeBSD website (www.freebsd.org) > > > >For informatino on the mailing lists, go to: > > http://www.freebsd.org/community/mailinglists.html > >or > > http://lists.FreeBSD.org/mailman/listinfo and look around. > > > >The version setup in FreeBSD can be a little confusing for newcomers > >because the terms stable and current are used in very specific ways - > >formally defined rather than in the more loose general conversation > >way we often use them. > > > >Current is the bleeding edge of development work - nothing is guaranteed > >and stable is the development branch that is actually intended to > >eventually > >become the next new version -- rather than current being the official > >present version out or stable being the most reliable version as one might > >guess from just the words before studying the documentation.. > >Check this part of the handbook: > > > >http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html > > > >If you are a FreeBSD beginning, what you want is a RELEASE version. > >The latest at the moment are 6.3 and 7.0 In the present form of > >the web page, the latest RELEASEs plus the next two are listed right > >there on the first page. > > > >Other information on upcoming releases can be found on the Release > >Engineering page: > > http://www.freebsd.org/releng/index.html > > > >By the way, "releng" stands for Release Engineering here and when > >you track a version for security updates you track a RELENG version. > > > >So, if you installed FreeBSD 7.1, then in your csupfile you would put: > > > > *default tag=RELENG_7_1 > > > >That would get you the security updates for FreeBSD 7.1 > > > >If you wanted to jump up to stable you would put: > > > > *default tag=RELENG_7 > > > >and that would be the stable version of the FreeBSD 7 branch. > >But, the funny thing about it is that the STABLE line is not mean > >that it is actually stable. They try to assure that it compiles > >and builds. And, usually it is pretty good. But it hasn't gone > >through all the official builds and been run against all the known > >problem sets as has a RELEASE when it is 'released'. > > > >So, for now, just install a RELEASE - probably 7.1 if you can wait > >or 7.0 right now and track the security fixes by csup-ing to RELENG_7_1 > >or RELENG_7_0 > > > >Have fun, > > > >////jerry > If using a release, can he not use freebsd-update to keep current on > fixes rather than rebuilding everything? On a slow system, the more > binary the better.
As far as I know. But, somehow I feel cleaner doing the whole thing. I haven't found the builds to take all that long. This system is not blindingly fast but, I suppose there are others that are much slower. ////jerry > > -Steve > > _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
