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diff --git a/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/early-adopter/article.sgml b/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/early-adopter/article.sgml index d70f79c..aa65b2a 100644 --- a/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/early-adopter/article.sgml +++ b/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/early-adopter/article.sgml @@ -16,11 +16,15 @@ <!ENTITY % release PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//ENTITIES Release Specification//EN"> %release; + +<!ENTITY release.4x "4.<replaceable>X</replaceable>"> +<!ENTITY release.5x "5.<replaceable>X</replaceable>"> + ]> <article> <articleinfo> - <title>Early Adopter's Guide to &os; 5.0-RELEASE</title> + <title>Early Adopter's Guide to &os; &release.current;</title> <authorgroup> <corpauthor>The &os; Release Engineering Team</corpauthor> @@ -34,35 +38,50 @@ <holder role="mailto:re@FreeBSD.org">The &os; Release Engineering Team</holder> </copyright> + + <abstract> + <para>This article describes the status of &os; + &release.current;, from the standpoint of users who may be new + to the &release.5x; series of releases or to &os; in general. + It presents some background information on release + engineering, some highlights of new features, and some + possible drawbacks that might be faced by early adopters. It + also contains some of the future release engineering plans for + the 4-STABLE development branch and some tips on upgrading + existing systems.</para> + </abstract> </articleinfo> <sect1 id="intro"> <title>Introduction</title> - <para>&os; 5.0 marks the first new major version of &os; in + <para>&os; &release.5x; marks the first new major version of &os; in over two years. Besides a number of new features, it also contains a number of major developments in the underlying system architecture. Along with these advances, however, comes a system that incorporates a tremendous amount of new and not-widely-tested code. Compared to the existing line of - 4.<replaceable>X</replaceable> releases, 5.0 may have regressions + &release.4x; releases, the first few &release.5x; releases + may have regressions in areas of stability, performance, and occasionally functionality.</para> - <para>For these reasons, the &a.re; does <emphasis>not</emphasis> - encourage users to blindly update from older &os; releases to - 5.0. Specifically, for more conservative users, we recommend - running 4.<replaceable>X</replaceable> releases (such as + <para>For these reasons, the &a.re; specifically + discourages users from updating from older &os; releases to + &release.current; unless they are aware of (and prepared to deal + with) possible regressions in the newer releases. + Specifically, for more conservative users, we recommend + running &release.4x; releases (such as 4.8-RELEASE) for the near-term future. We feel that such users are probably best served by - upgrading to 5.<replaceable>X</replaceable> only after a + upgrading to &release.5x; only after a 5-STABLE development branch has been created; this may be around - the time of 5.1-RELEASE or 5.2-RELEASE.</para> + the time of 5.2-RELEASE.</para> - <para>(&os; 5.0 suffers from what has been described as a + <para>(&os; &release.5x; suffers from what has been described as a <quote>chicken and egg</quote> problem. The entire project has - a goal of producing a 5.0-RELEASE that is as stable and reliable + a goal of producing releases that are as stable and reliable as possible. This stability and reliability requires widespread testing, particularly of the system's newer features. However, getting a large number of users to test the system, in a @@ -70,14 +89,14 @@ release first!)</para> <para>This article describes some of the issues involved in - installing and running &os; 5.0-RELEASE. We begin with a + installing and running &os; &release.current;. We begin with a brief overview of the &os; release process. We then present - some of the more noteworthy new features in &os; 5.0, along + some of the more noteworthy new features in &os; &release.current;, along with some areas that may prove troublesome for unwary users. For those users choosing to remain with 4-STABLE-based releases, we give some of the short- to medium-term plans for this development branch. Finally, we present some notes on upgrading - existing 4.<replaceable>X</replaceable> systems to 5.0.</para> + existing &release.4x; systems to &release.current;.</para> </sect1> @@ -98,12 +117,12 @@ these branches after some amount of testing in CURRENT. At the moment, only one STABLE branch is under active development; this branch is referred to as <quote>4-STABLE</quote>, and all of the - &os; 4.<replaceable>X</replaceable> releases were based on + &os; &release.4x; releases were based on it. This branch has the tag <literal>RELENG_4</literal> in the CVS repository.</para> - <para>&os; 5.0 will be based on the CURRENT branch. This - will be the first release from this branch in over two years (the + <para>&os; 5.0 and 5.1 are based on the CURRENT branch. These + are the first releases from this branch in over two years (the last was &os; 4.0, in March 2000).</para> <para>At some point after the release of &os; 5.0, a @@ -112,31 +131,37 @@ The past two stable branches (3-STABLE and 4-STABLE) were created immediately after their respective <quote>dot-oh</quote> releases (3.0 and 4.0, respectively). In hindsight, this - practice did not give sufficient time for either CURRENT or the new - STABLE branches to stabilize after the new branches were - created.</para> + practice did not give sufficient time for either CURRENT + to stabilize before the new branches were + created. This in turn resulted in wasted effort porting bug + fixes between branches, as well as some architectural changes + that could not be ported between branches at all.</para> <para>Therefore, the release engineering team will only create the - 5-STABLE branch in the CVS repository after they have found a + 5-STABLE branch in the CVS repository after we have found a relatively stable state to use as its basis. It is likely that there will be - multiple releases in the 5.<replaceable>X</replaceable> series + multiple releases in the &release.5x; series before this happens; we estimate that the 5-STABLE branch will be created sometime after - 5.1-RELEASE or 5.2-RELEASE.</para> + 5.2-RELEASE.</para> <para>More information on &os; release engineering processes can be found on the <ulink url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/releng/index.html">Release - Engineering Web pages</ulink> and in the &os; <ulink url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/releng/index.html">Release - Engineering</ulink> article.</para> + Engineering Web pages</ulink> and in the <ulink + url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/releng/index.html"><quote>&os; Release + Engineering</quote></ulink> article. Specific issues for the upcoming + 5-STABLE development branch can be found in <ulink + url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/5-roadmap/index.html"><quote>The + Roadmap for 5-STABLE</quote></ulink>.</para> </sect1> <sect1 id="new"> <title>New Features</title> - <para>A large attraction of &os; 5.0 is a number of new + <para>A large attraction of &os; &release.5x; is a number of new features. These new features and functionality generally involve large architectural changes that were not feasible to port back to the &os; 4-STABLE development branch. (By contrast, many @@ -149,13 +174,15 @@ <para>SMPng: The <quote>next generation</quote> support for SMP machines (work in progress). There is now partial support for multiple processors to be running in the kernel - at the same time.</para> + at the same time. This work is ongoing.</para> </listitem> <listitem> <para>KSE: Kernel Scheduled Entities allow a single process to have multiple kernel-level threads, similar to Scheduler - Activations.</para> + Activations. The (experimental) <filename>libkse</filename> + and <filename>libthr</filename> libraries make this + feature available to multi-threaded userland programs.</para> </listitem> <listitem> @@ -166,7 +193,7 @@ <listitem> <para>GCC: The compiler toolchain is now based on GCC - 3.2.1, rather than GCC + 3.2.2, rather than GCC 2.95.<replaceable>X</replaceable>.</para> </listitem> @@ -190,7 +217,9 @@ <listitem> <para>UFS2: A new UFS2 on-disk format has been added, which supports extended per-file attributes and larger file - sizes.</para> + sizes. UFS2 is now the default format for &man.newfs.8;. + On all platforms except for pc98, filesystems created from + within &man.sysinstall.8; will use UFS2 by default.</para> </listitem> <listitem> @@ -200,14 +229,14 @@ </itemizedlist> <para>A more comprehensive list of new features can be found in - the release notes for &os; 5.0.</para> + the release notes for &os; &release.prev; and &os; &release.current;.</para> </sect1> <sect1 id="drawbacks"> <title>Drawbacks to Early Adoption</title> - <para>Along with the new features of &os; 5.0 come some areas + <para>Along with the new features of &os; &release.5x; come some areas that can cause problems, or at least can lead to unexpected behavior. Generally, these come from the fact that a number of features are works-in-progress. A partial list of these @@ -217,7 +246,9 @@ <listitem> <para>A number of features are not yet finished. Examples - from the feature list above include SMPng and KSE.</para> + from the feature list above include SMPng and KSE. While + suitable for testing and experimentation, these features may + not be ready for production use.</para> </listitem> <listitem> @@ -238,6 +269,14 @@ </listitem> <listitem> + <para>Some parts of the &os; base system have fallen into a + state of disrepair due to a lack of users and maintainers. + These have been removed. Specific examples include the + generation of a.out-style executables, XNS networking + support, and the X-10 controller driver.</para> + </listitem> + + <listitem> <para>A number of ports and packages do not build or do not run correctly under &os; 5.0, whereas they did under &os; 4-STABLE. Generally these problems are caused by compiler @@ -245,8 +284,7 @@ </listitem> <listitem> - <para>Because &os; 5.0 is the first release from the - CURRENT branch in over two years, many of its features are + <para>Many &os; &release.5x; features are seeing wide exposure for the first time. Many of these features (such as SMPng) have broad impacts on the kernel.</para> @@ -264,7 +302,7 @@ branch after a <quote>settling time</quote> in -CURRENT. &os; 5.0 does not have the stabilizing influence of a -STABLE branch. (It is likely that the 5-STABLE development - branch will be created sometime after 5.1-RELEASE or + branch will be created sometime after 5.2-RELEASE.)</para> </listitem> @@ -273,7 +311,7 @@ url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html">Handbook</ulink> and <ulink url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/index.html">FAQ</ulink>) - may not reflect changes recently made to &os; 5.0.</para> + may not reflect changes recently made to &os; &release.5x;.</para> </listitem> </itemizedlist> @@ -281,7 +319,7 @@ <para>Because a number of these drawbacks affect system stability, the release engineering team recommends that more conservative sites and users stick to releases based on the 4-STABLE branch until - the 5.<replaceable>X</replaceable> series is more polished.</para> + the &release.5x; series is more polished.</para> </sect1> @@ -289,27 +327,26 @@ <title>Plans for the 4-STABLE Branch</title> <para>The release of &os; 5.0 does not mean the end of the - 4-STABLE branch. There will most likely be at least one more release on + 4-STABLE branch. Indeed, &os; 4.8 was released two months after + 5.0, in April 2003. There will most likely be at least one more release on this branch, namely 4.9-RELEASE, currently scheduled for summer - 2003.</para> - - <para>As of this writing, the release engineering team has no - definite plans for future releases (past 4.8) on the 4-STABLE - branch. However, a 4.9-RELEASE or even a 4.10-RELEASE are - likely possibilities. Any future releases from this branch will + 2003. + A 4.10-RELEASE is a likely possibility as well. + Future releases from this branch will depend on several factors. The most important of these is the existence and stability of the 5-STABLE branch. If CURRENT is not sufficiently stable to allow the creation of a 5-STABLE branch, this may require and permit more releases from the 4-STABLE branch. Until the last declared release - on the 4-STABLE branch, new features may be merged from HEAD at + on the 4-STABLE branch, new features may be merged from <literal>HEAD</literal> at the discretion of developers, subject to existing release engineering policies.</para> - <para>To some extent, the release engineering team will take into + <para>To some extent, the release engineering team (as well as the + developer community as a whole) will take into account user demand for future 4-STABLE releases. This demand, however, will need to be balanced with release engineering - resources (in terms of personnel, computing resources, and mirror + resources (particularly developers' time, computing resources, and mirror archive space).</para> <para>The &a.security-officer; will continue to support releases @@ -319,20 +356,20 @@ page</ulink> on the &os; web site. Generally, the two most recent releases from any branch will be supported with respect to security advisories and security fixes. At its discretion, - the team may support other releases.</para> + the team may support other releases for specific issues.</para> </sect1> <sect1 id="upgrade"> - <title>Notes on Upgrading</title> + <title>Notes on Upgrading from &os; &release.4x;</title> <para>For those users with existing &os; systems, this section offers a few notes on upgrading a &os; - 4.<replaceable>X</replaceable> system to - 5.<replaceable>X</replaceable>. As with any &os; upgrade, it + &release.4x; system to + &release.5x;. As with any &os; upgrade, it is crucial to read the release notes and the errata for the version in question, as well as - <filename>src/UPDATING</filename> for source upgrades.</para> + <filename>src/UPDATING</filename> in the case of source upgrades.</para> <sect2> <title>Binary Upgrades</title> @@ -341,14 +378,16 @@ <quote>backup everything, reformat, reinstall, and restore everything</quote>. This eliminates problems of incompatible or obsolete executables or configuration files polluting the - new system.</para> + new system. It allows new filesystems to be created to take + advantage of new functionality (most notably, the UFS2 + defaults).</para> <para>As of this time, the binary upgrade option in &man.sysinstall.8; has not been well-tested for cross-major-version upgrades. Using this feature is not recommended. In particular, a binary upgrade will leave behind a number of files that are present in &os; - 4.<replaceable>X</replaceable> but not in 5.0. These obsolete + &release.4x; but not in &release.5x;. These obsolete files may create some problems.</para> <para>On the i386 and pc98 platforms, a UserConfig utility @@ -371,7 +410,7 @@ rather than the stripped-down kernel on the floppy images. In theory, any system capable of booting the Microsoft Windows NT 4 installation CDROMs should be able to cope with the &os; - 5.0 CDROMs.</para> + &release.5x; CDROMs.</para> </sect2> @@ -402,8 +441,8 @@ users will not notice this change.</para> <para>It is generally possible to run old - 4.<replaceable>X</replaceable> executables under - 5.<replaceable>X</replaceable>, but this requires the + &release.4x; executables under + &release.5x;, but this requires the <filename>compat4x</filename> distribution to be installed. Thus, using old ports <emphasis>may</emphasis> be possible.</para> @@ -417,22 +456,38 @@ (especially with C++ programs) as the compiler may wind up using a mixture of obsolete and current header files.</para> - <para><filename>MAKEDEV</filename> is no longer available. - FreeBSD 5.X uses a device filesystem. For more information, + <para><filename>MAKEDEV</filename> is no longer available, nor + is it required. + FreeBSD &release.5x; uses a device filesystem, which automatically + creates device nodes on demand. For more information, please see &man.devfs.5;.</para> - </sect2> + <para>UFS2 is the default on-disk format for file systems + created using &man.newfs.8;. For all platforms except pc98, + it is also the default for file systems created using the disk + labeling screen within &man.sysinstall.8;. Because &os; + &release.4x; only understands UFS1 (not UFS2), disk partitions + that need to be accessed by both &release.5x; and &release.4x; + must be created with UFS1. This can be specified using the + <option>-O1</option> option to &man.newfs.8;, or on the disk + labeling screen in &man.sysinstall.8;. This situation most + often arises with a a single machine that dual-boots &os; + &release.4x; and &os; &release.5x;. Note that there is no way + to convert file systems between the two on-disk formats (other + than backing up, re-creating the file system, and + restoring).</para> + </sect2> </sect1> <sect1 id="summary"> <title>Summary</title> - <para>While &os; 5.0 contains a number of new and exciting + <para>While &os; &release.current; contains a number of new and exciting features, it may not be suitable for all users at this time. In this document, we presented some background on release - engineering, some of the more notable new features of the 5.<replaceable>X</replaceable> + engineering, some of the more notable new features of the &release.5x; 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> |
