From 22c37d9110389229132a98c22888aa3c9618a623 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: bmah Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2003 05:54:35 +0000 Subject: IFP4: Update the Early Adopters Guide to bring it up to the state of the world roughly as of the upcoming 5.2 release. Approved by: re (implicitly) --- .../doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/early-adopter/article.sgml | 129 ++++++++++++++------- 1 file changed, 90 insertions(+), 39 deletions(-) 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 796ea7e..b565091 100644 --- a/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/early-adopter/article.sgml +++ b/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/early-adopter/article.sgml @@ -22,6 +22,8 @@ X"> X"> + + ]> @@ -84,11 +86,11 @@ 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 + &release.4last;) for the near-term future. We feel that such users are probably best served by upgrading to &release.5x; only after a 5-STABLE development branch has been created; this may be around - the time of 5.2-RELEASE. + the time of &release.5branchpoint;. (&os; &release.5x; suffers from what has been described as a chicken and egg problem. The entire project has @@ -132,9 +134,10 @@ it. This branch has the tag RELENG_4 in the CVS repository. - &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). + &os; 5.0, 5.1, and 5.2 are based on the CURRENT branch. The + first of these releases was made after over two years of development + (prior to these, the + last release from HEAD was &os; 4.0, in March 2000). At some point after the release of &os; 5.0, a 5-STABLE branch will be created in the &os; @@ -154,8 +157,8 @@ there will be multiple releases in the &release.5x; series before this happens; we estimate - that the 5-STABLE branch will be created sometime after - 5.2-RELEASE. + that the 5-STABLE branch will be created around the time of + &release.5branchpoint;. More information on &os; release engineering processes can be found on the SMPng: The next generation 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. This work is ongoing. + SMP machines (work in progress). + Ongoing work aims to perform fine-grained locking of various + kernel subsystems to increase the number of threads of + execution that can be running in the kernel. More + information can be found on the + FreeBSD SMP + Project page. KSE: Kernel Scheduled Entities allow a single process to have multiple kernel-level threads, similar to Scheduler - Activations. The (experimental) libkse - and libthr libraries make this - feature available to multi-threaded userland programs. + Activations. The libkse + and libthr threading libraries make this + feature available to multi-threaded userland programs, + using the &man.pthread.3; API. - New architectures: Support for the &sparc64; and ia64 - architectures, in addition to the &i386;, pc98, and + New architectures: Support for the sparc64, ia64, and amd64 + architectures, in addition to the i386, pc98, and alpha. GCC: The compiler toolchain is now based on GCC - 3.2.2, rather than GCC + 3.3.X, rather than GCC 2.95.X. @@ -215,7 +223,7 @@ GEOM: A flexible framework for transformations of disk - I/O requests. An experimental disk encryption facility has + I/O requests. The GBDE experimental disk encryption facility has been developed based on GEOM. @@ -237,10 +245,14 @@ Cardbus: Support for Cardbus devices. + + Bluetooth: Support for Bluetooth devices. + + A more comprehensive list of new features can be found in - the release notes for &os; &release.prev; and &os; &release.current;. + the release notes for the various &os; &release.5x; releases. @@ -267,7 +279,10 @@ ABIs/APIs, third-party binary device drivers will require modifications to work correctly under &os; 5.0. There is a possibility of more minor ABI/API changes before the - 5-STABLE branch is created. + 5-STABLE branch is created, particularly on newer machine + architectures. In some (hopefully rare) cases, + user-visible structures may change, requiring recompiling of + applications or reinstallation of ports/packages. @@ -289,32 +304,35 @@ A number of ports and packages do not build or do not - run correctly under &os; 5.0, whereas they did under &os; + run correctly under &os; &release.5x;, whereas they did under &os; 4-STABLE. Generally these problems are caused by compiler - toolchain changes or cleanups of header files. + toolchain changes or cleanups of header files. In some + cases they are caused by changes in kernel or device + support. 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. + kernel, and it may be difficult to gauge their effects on + stability and performance. A certain amount of debugging and diagnostic code is - still in place to help track down problems in &os; 5.0's new - features. This may cause &os; 5.0 to perform more slowly + still in place to help track down problems in &os; &release.5x;'s new + features. This may cause &os; &release.5x; to perform more slowly than 4-STABLE. Features are only added to the 4-STABLE development branch after a settling time in -CURRENT. - &os; 5.0 does not have the stabilizing influence of a + &os; &release.5x; does not have the stabilizing influence of a -STABLE branch. (It is likely that the 5-STABLE development branch will be created sometime after - 5.2-RELEASE.) + &release.5branchpoint;.) @@ -330,20 +348,25 @@ 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 &release.5x; series is more polished. + the &release.5x; series is more polished. While we believe that + many initial problems with stability have been fixed, some + issues with performance are still being addressed by + works-in-progress. We also note that best common practices in + system administration call for trying operating system upgrades + in a test environment before upgrading one's production, or + mission-critical systems. Plans for the 4-STABLE Branch - The release of &os; 5.0 does not mean the end of the - 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. - A 4.10-RELEASE is a likely possibility as well. - Future releases from this branch will + It is important to note that even though releases are being + made in the &release.5x; series, support for &release.4x; + releases will continue for some time. + Indeed, &os; 4.8 was released two months after + 5.0, in April 2003, followed by 4.9, in October 2003. + Future releases from the 4-STABLE branch (if any) 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 @@ -358,7 +381,12 @@ account user demand for future 4-STABLE releases. This demand, however, will need to be balanced with release engineering resources (particularly developers' time, computing resources, and mirror - archive space). + archive space). We note that in general, the &os; community + (both users and developers) has shown a preference for + moving forward with new features in + the &release.5x; branch and beyond, due to the difficulty + involved in backporting (and maintaining) new functionality in + &release.4x;. The &a.security-officer; will continue to support releases made from the 4-STABLE branch in accordance with their published @@ -369,6 +397,20 @@ to security advisories and security fixes. At its discretion, the team may support other releases for specific issues. + At this point, the release engineering team has no specific + plans for future releases from the 4-STABLE development branch. + It seems likely that any future releases (if + any) from this branch will be lightweight, + point releases. These will probably carry + 4.9.X version numbers, to indicate + that they are not intended to provide large amount of new + functionality compared to &release.4last;. In general, these + releases will emphasize security fixes, bug fixes, and device + driver updates (particularly to accommodate new hardware easily + supported by existing drivers). Major new features (especially those + requiring infrastructure support added in &release.5x;) will + probably not be added in these releases. + @@ -399,12 +441,15 @@ recommended. In particular, a binary upgrade will leave behind a number of files that are present in &os; &release.4x; but not in &release.5x;. These obsolete - files may create some problems. + files may create some problems. Examples of these files + include old C++ headers, programs moved to the Ports + Collection, or shared libraries that have moved to support + dynamically-linked root filesystem executables. On the &i386; and pc98 platforms, a UserConfig utility exists on 4-STABLE to allow boot-time configuration of ISA devices when booting from installation media. Under &os; - 5.0, this functionality has been replaced in part by the + &release.5x;, this functionality has been replaced in part by the &man.device.hints.5; mechanism (it allows specifying the same parameters, but with a very different interface). @@ -455,8 +500,14 @@ &release.4x; executables under &release.5x;, but this requires the compat4x distribution to be installed. - Thus, using old ports may be - possible. + Using old ports may be possible in some cases, although there + are a number of known cases of backward incompatibility. As an + example, the + devel/gnomevfs2, + mail/postfix, and + security/cfs ports need to + be recompiled due to changes in the statfs + structure. When installing or upgrading over the top of an existing 4-STABLE-based system, it is extremely important to clear out -- cgit v1.1