422 lines
17 KiB
Plaintext
422 lines
17 KiB
Plaintext
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//DTD DocBook V4.1-Based Extension//EN" [
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<!ENTITY % man PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook Manual Page Entities//EN">
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<!ENTITY % freebsd PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook Miscellaneous FreeBSD Entities//EN">
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<!ENTITY % teams PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook Team Entities//EN">
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<!ENTITY % mailing-lists PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES DocBook Mailing List Entities//EN">
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<!ENTITY % release PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES Release Specification//EN">
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%release;
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]>
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<article>
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<articleinfo>
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<title>Early Adopter's Guide to &os; 5.0-RELEASE</title>
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<authorgroup>
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<corpauthor>The &os; Release Engineering Team</corpauthor>
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</authorgroup>
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<pubdate>$FreeBSD$</pubdate>
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<copyright>
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<year>2002</year>
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<holder role="mailto:re@FreeBSD.org">The &os; Release
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Engineering Team</holder>
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</copyright>
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</articleinfo>
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<sect1>
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<title>Introduction</title>
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<para>&os; 5.0 marks the first new major version of &os; in
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over two years. Besides a number of new features, it also
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contains a number of major developments in the underlying system
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architecture.
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Along with these advances, however, comes a system that
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incorporates a tremendous amount of new and not-widely-tested
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code. Compared to the existing line of
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4.<replaceable>X</replaceable> releases, 5.0 may have regressions
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in areas of stability, performance, and occasionally
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functionality.</para>
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<para>For these reasons, the &a.re; does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
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encourage users to blindly update from older &os; releases to
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5.0. Specifically, for more conservative users, we recommend
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running 4.<replaceable>X</replaceable> releases (such as
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4.7-RELEASE or the upcoming 4.8-RELEASE) for the near-term
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future. We feel that such users are probably best served by
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upgrading to 5.<replaceable>X</replaceable> only after a
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5-STABLE development branch has been created; this may be around
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the time of 5.1-RELEASE or 5.2-RELEASE.</para>
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<para>(&os; 5.0 suffers from what has been described as a
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<quote>chicken and egg</quote> problem. The entire project has
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a goal of producing a 5.0-RELEASE that is as stable and reliable
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as possible. This stability and reliability requires widespread
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testing, particularly of the system's newer features. However,
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getting a large number of users to test the system, in a
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practical sense, means building and distributing a
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release first!)</para>
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<para>This article describes some of the issues involved in
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installing and running &os; 5.0-RELEASE. We begin with a
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brief overview of the &os; release process. We then present
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some of the more noteworthy new features in &os; 5.0, along
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with some areas that may prove troublesome for unwary users.
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For those users choosing to remain with 4-STABLE-based releases,
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we give some of the short- to medium-term plans for this
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development branch. Finally, we present some notes on upgrading
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existing 4.<replaceable>X</replaceable> systems to 5.0.</para>
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</sect1>
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<sect1>
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<title>An Overview of the &os; Release Process</title>
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<para>&os; employs a model of development that relies on multiple
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development branches within the source code repository. The main branch is called
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<quote>CURRENT</quote>, and is referred to in the CVS repository
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with the <literal>HEAD</literal> tag. New features are
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committed first to this branch; although this means that CURRENT
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is the first to see new functionality, it also means that it
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occasionally suffers from breakages as new features are
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added and debugged.</para>
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<para>Most &os; releases are made from one of several
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<quote>STABLE</quote> branches. Features are only added to
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these branches after some amount of testing in CURRENT. At the
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moment, only one STABLE branch is under active development; this
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branch is referred to as <quote>4-STABLE</quote>, and all of the
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&os; 4.<replaceable>X</replaceable> releases were based on
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it. This branch has the tag <literal>RELENG_4</literal> in the
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CVS repository.</para>
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<para>&os; 5.0 will be based on the CURRENT branch. This
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will be the first release from this branch in over two years (the
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last was &os; 4.0, in March 2000).</para>
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<para>At some point after the release of &os; 5.0, a
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<quote>5-STABLE</quote> branch will be created in the &os;
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CVS repository with the branch tag <literal>RELENG_5</literal>.
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The past two stable branches (3-STABLE and 4-STABLE) were
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created immediately after their respective <quote>dot-oh</quote>
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releases (3.0 and 4.0, respectively). In hindsight, this
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practice did not give sufficient time for either CURRENT or the new
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STABLE branches to stabilize after the new branches were
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created.</para>
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<para>Therefore, the release engineering team will only create the
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5-STABLE branch in the CVS repository after they have found a
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relatively stable state to use as its basis. It is likely that
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there will be
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multiple releases in the 5.<replaceable>X</replaceable> series
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before this happens; we estimate
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that the 5-STABLE branch will be created sometime after
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5.1-RELEASE or 5.2-RELEASE.</para>
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<para>More information on &os; release engineering processes can be found
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on the <ulink
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url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/releng/index.html">Release
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Engineering Web pages</ulink> and in the &os; <ulink url="http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/releng/index.html">Release
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Engineering</ulink> article.</para>
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</sect1>
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<sect1>
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<title>New Features</title>
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<para>A large attraction of &os; 5.0 is a number of new
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features. These new features and functionality generally involve
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large architectural changes that were not feasible to port back to
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the &os; 4-STABLE development branch. (By contrast, many
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self-contained enhancements, such as new device drivers or
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userland utilities, have already been ported.) A brief, but not
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exhaustive list includes:</para>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>SMPng: The <quote>next generation</quote> support for
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SMP machines (work in progress). There is now partial
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support for multiple processors to be running in the kernel
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at the same time.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>KSE: Kernel Scheduled Entities allow a single process
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to have multiple kernel-level threads, similar to Scheduler
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Activations.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>New architectures: Support for the sparc64 and ia64
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architectures, in addition to the i386, pc98, and
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alpha.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>GCC: The compiler toolchain is now based on GCC
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3.<replaceable>X</replaceable>, rather than GCC
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2.95.<replaceable>X</replaceable>.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>MAC: Support for extensible, loadable Mandatory Access
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Control policies.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>GEOM: A flexible framework for transformations of disk
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I/O requests. An experimental disk encryption facility has
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been developed based on GEOM.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>FFS: The FFS filesystem now supports background
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&man.fsck.8; operations (for faster crash recovery) and
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filesystem snapshots.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>UFS2: A new UFS2 on-disk format has been added, which
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supports extended per-file attributes and larger file
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sizes.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Cardbus: Support for Cardbus devices.</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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<para>A more comprehensive list of new features can be found in
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the release notes for &os; 5.0.</para>
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</sect1>
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<sect1>
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<title>Drawbacks to Early Adoption</title>
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<para>Along with the new features of &os; 5.0 come some areas
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that can cause problems, or at least can lead to unexpected
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behavior. Generally, these come from the fact that a number of
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features are works-in-progress. A partial list of these
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areas of difficulty includes:</para>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>A number of features are not yet finished. Examples
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from the feature list above include SMPng and KSE.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Because of changes in kernel data structures and
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ABIs/APIs, third-party binary device drivers will require
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modifications to work correctly under &os; 5.0.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Several parts of &os;'s base system functionality
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have been moved to the Ports Collection. Notable examples
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include <application>Perl</application>,
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<application>UUCP</application>, and most (but not all)
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games. While these programs are still supported, their
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removal from the base system may cause some confusion.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>A number of ports and packages do not build or do not
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run correctly under &os; 5.0, whereas they did under &os;
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4-STABLE. Generally these problems are caused by compiler
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toolchain changes or cleanups of header files.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Because &os; 5.0 is the first release from the
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CURRENT branch in over two years, many of its features are
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seeing wide exposure for the first time. Many of these
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features (such as SMPng) have broad impacts on the
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kernel.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>A certain amount of debugging and diagnostic code is
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still in place to help track down problems in &os; 5.0's new
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features. This may cause &os; 5.0 to perform more slowly
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than 4-STABLE.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Features are only added to the 4-STABLE development
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branch after a <quote>settling time</quote> in -CURRENT.
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&os; 5.0 does not have the stabilizing influence of a
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-STABLE branch. (It is likely that the 5-STABLE development
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branch will be created sometime after 5.1-RELEASE or
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5.2-RELEASE.)</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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<para>Because a number of these drawbacks affect system stability, the
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release engineering team recommends that more conservative sites
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and users stick to releases based on the 4-STABLE branch until
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the 5.<replaceable>X</replaceable> series is more polished.</para>
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</sect1>
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<sect1>
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<title>Plans for the 4-STABLE Branch</title>
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<para>The release of &os; 5.0 does not mean the end of the
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4-STABLE branch. There will be at least one more release on
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this branch, namely 4.8-RELEASE, currently scheduled for 1
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February 2003.</para>
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<para>As of this writing, the release engineering team has no
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definite plans for future releases (past 4.8) on the 4-STABLE
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branch. However, a 4.9-RELEASE or even a 4.10-RELEASE are
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likely possibilities. Any future releases from this branch will
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depend on several factors. The most important of these
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is the existence and stability of the 5-STABLE branch. If
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CURRENT is not sufficiently stable to allow the creation of a
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5-STABLE branch, this may require and permit more releases from
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the 4-STABLE branch. Until the last declared release
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on the 4-STABLE branch, new features may be merged from HEAD at
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the discretion of developers, subject to existing release
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engineering policies.</para>
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<para>To some extent, the release engineering team will take into
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account user demand for future 4-STABLE releases. This demand,
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however, will need to be balanced with release engineering
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resources (in terms of personnel, computing resources, and mirror
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archive space).</para>
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<para>The &a.security-officer; will continue to support releases
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made from the 4-STABLE branch in accordance with their published
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policies, which can be found on the <ulink
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url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/security/index.html">Security
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page</ulink> on the &os; web site. Generally, the two most
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recent releases from any branch will be supported with respect
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to security advisories and security fixes. At its discretion,
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the team may support other releases.</para>
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</sect1>
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<sect1>
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<title>Notes on Upgrading</title>
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<para>For those users with existing &os; systems, this section
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offers a few notes on upgrading a &os;
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4.<replaceable>X</replaceable> system to
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5.<replaceable>X</replaceable>. As with any &os; upgrade, it
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is crucial to read the release notes and the errata for the
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version in question, as well as
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<filename>src/UPDATING</filename> for source upgrades.</para>
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<sect2>
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<title>Binary Upgrades</title>
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<para>Probably the most straightforward approach is that of
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<quote>backup everything, reformat, reinstall, and restore
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everything</quote>. This eliminates problems of incompatible
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or obsolete executables or configuration files polluting the
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new system.</para>
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<para>As of this time, the binary upgrade option in
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&man.sysinstall.8; has not been well-tested for
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cross-major-version upgrades. Using this feature is not
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recommended.</para>
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<para>On the i386 and pc98 platforms, a UserConfig utility
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exists on 4-STABLE to allow boot-time configuration of ISA
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devices when booting from installation media. Under &os;
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5.0, this functionality has been replaced in part by the
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&man.device.hints.5; mechanism (it allows specifying the same
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parameters, but is not interactive).</para>
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<para>Floppy-based binary installations may require downloading
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a third, new floppy image holding additional device drivers
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in kernel modules. This <filename>drivers.flp</filename>
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floppy image will generally be found in the same location as
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the usual <filename>kern.flp</filename> and
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<filename>mfsroot.flp</filename> floppy images.</para>
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<para>CDROM-based installations on the i386 architecture now use
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a <quote>no-emulation</quote> boot loader. This allows, among
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other things, the use of a <literal>GENERIC</literal> kernel,
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rather than the stripped-down kernel on the floppy images. In
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theory, any system capable of booting the Microsoft Windows NT
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4 installation CDROMs should be able to cope with the &os;
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5.0 CDROMs.</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2>
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<title>Source Upgrades</title>
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<para>Reading <filename>src/UPDATING</filename> is absolutely
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essential. The section entitled <quote>To upgrade from
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4.x-stable to current</quote> contains a step-by-step update
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procedure. This procedure must be followed exactly, without
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making use of the <quote>shortcuts</quote> that some users
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occasionally employ.</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2>
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<title>Common Notes</title>
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<para><application>Perl</application> has been removed from the
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base system. The recommended way of installing Perl is either
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from a pre-built package or from the Ports Collection.
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Building Perl as a part of the base system created a number of
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difficulties which made updates problematic.
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The base system utilities that used Perl have either
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been rewritten (if still applicable) or discarded (if
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obsolete).</para>
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<para>It is generally possible to run old
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4.<replaceable>X</replaceable> executables under
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5.<replaceable>X</replaceable>, but this requires the
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<filename>compat4x</filename> distribution to be installed.
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Thus, using old ports <emphasis>may</emphasis> be
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possible.</para>
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<para>When installing or upgrading over the top of an existing
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4-STABLE-based system, it is extremely important to clear out
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old header files in <filename>/usr/include</filename>.
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Renaming or moving this directory before a binary installation
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or an <literal>installworld</literal> is generally
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sufficient. If this step is not taken, confusion may result
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(especially with C++ programs) as the compiler may wind up
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using a mixture of obsolete and current header files.</para>
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</sect2>
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</sect1>
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<sect1>
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<title>Summary</title>
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<para>While &os; 5.0 contains a number of new and exciting
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features, it may not be suitable for all users at this time. In
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this document, we presented some background on release
|
|
engineering, some of the more notable new features of the 5.<replaceable>X</replaceable>
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series, and some drawbacks to early adoption. We also presented
|
|
some future plans for the 4-STABLE development branch and some
|
|
tips on upgrading for early adopters.</para>
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|
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</sect1>
|
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</article>
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