Following -current for the first time...

[Daffy]

There comes a time in a man's life to follow -current... So for the first time, I carefully read the FAQ, some things I found in mailing lists and everything in general I could find about following -current. The reason I'm posting here is to check if I did all things correctly.

First things first. A few notes:

- I have no custom kernel.
- I made a clean installation from the previous -current snapshot.
- I installed the ports tree that came with the snapshot (same date).

The steps I followed:

- booted from cd (newest -current) and followed instructions for update.
- rebooted.
- as root, I did the following (ftp is just a matter of preference):

sysmerge -s ftp://ftp.cc.uoc.gr/mirrors/OpenBSD/snapshots/i386/etc49.tgz -x ftp://ftp.cc.uoc.gr/mirrors/OpenBSD/snapshots/i386//xetc49.tgz

- installed the temporary files
- updated ports with

cd /usr/
cvs -qd anoncvs@anoncvs.ca.openbsd.org:/cvs get -P ports

- And for the final touch, I did a

pkg_add -u

So far, the system's looking nice and smooth. All files are there. I'm just asking because with no previous experience on this, I need to know if the steps I followed were correct.

Thank you.

[rocket357]

That's the beauty of OpenBSD...if you follow the docs, you're in good shape.

Sounds to me like you have a shiny new -current machine that's all in working order.

[Daffy]

Thank you very much rocket357.

And a last question about current. Let's say that the next snapshot is in 4 days and the after that in 8. If I miss the first, am I able to proceed to update with the second without messing things up?

[rocket357]

Originally Posted by Daffy

If I miss the first, am I able to proceed to update with the second without messing things up?

Yeah, the snapshot installers (bsd.rd, cd49.iso, and install49.iso) all operate exactly like -RELEASE versions of the same installers...you can't produce an inconsistent system using those installers if you use them properly and completely (i.e. you don't reboot in the middle of the upgrade, etc...).

And, as you've already stated, make sure you sysmerge and pkg_add -u after each snapshot upgrade.

[ocicat]

Originally Posted by Daffy

If I miss the first, am I able to proceed to update with the second without messing things up?

Yes, this scenario is covered in the table shown in Section 5.3.2 of the FAQ.

[Daffy]

Resurrecting the thread with a question about -current.

So far, I'm updating with bsd.rd and the laptop still survives.

Now, with the 5.0 release, I'm somehow confused with the sysmerge utility (even if now it's automated at the end of each update). Let's say that I want to update from 4.9 -current to 5.0 and I choose to manually sysmerge /etc. Im going to give

sysmerge -s ftp://ftp.address/arch/etc50.tgz -x ftp://ftp.address/arch/xetc50.tgz

?

I read sysmerge man page, but I cannot understand completely the comparison. It compares the new /etc against the old one. But why do we need to specify two etc (etc/xetc) paths?

Perhaps a noob question, but I feel the urge to learn that...

[jggimi]

It isn't two paths, it is two filesets. Both have content for /etc (and /var) that needs to be merged with your local provisioning.

[jggimi]

Allow me to add, on my -current build machine, since I maintain from source, I just use this command:

# sysmerge

The default is to use /usr/src rather than fileset(s).

I also build a release(8), for installation on other platforms, and there i use -s and -x.

[Daffy]

Originally Posted by jggimi

It isn't two paths, it is two filesets. Both have content for /etc (and /var) that needs to be merged with your local provisioning.

Thank you very much for the info.

[ocicat]

Originally Posted by Daffy

Now, with the 5.0 release...

For those coming to this thread later, Daffy is currently referring to 5.0-beta. OpenBSD 5.0-release will not be officially available until 1 November 2011 as currently scheduled. The OpenBSD project attempts to release new public releases every May & November as mentioned in Section 1.7 of the FAQ.