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Old 23rd January 2012
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jggimi jggimi is offline
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Join Date: May 2008
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@Daemonfowl, there are many production users of -current. It can be as easy as upgrading to the most recent snapshot. However there are some things you should consider before making the jump:

  • Since -current is an active development environment 10 months of the year (see FAQ 5.1), there is the possibility that a component or feature will stop working, or suddenly function differently. You must get used to testing your applications after a -current build or upgrade, and be prepared to back out your changes. This isn't difficult, but it must become part of your normal cadence. (As an example of this, two weeks ago I had a problem with both a window manager and a browser on a workstation after upgrading -current while various library bumps were in progress. I was unable to isolate a specific root cause. The problem was resolved immediately by restoring from backup, and was transient -- it did not recur after my next release(8) build.)
  • Most mirrors carry the "snapshot packages" built for the more popular architectures, but they will rarely if ever be synced exactly with any snapshot. Users of -current must therefore be comfortable with building individual packages from ports from time to time, or their complete set of ports, as necessary -- whether they upgrade snapshot to snapshot, or whether they build from source.
  • All -current users must review the Following -current FAQ for applicable items prior to upgrading, or building -current. Some of these structural changes may be implemented via the use of sysmerge(8), others may require manual configuration.

Last edited by jggimi; 23rd January 2012 at 02:57 PM. Reason: Added a link to the Following -current FAQ reference.
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