5 ms·

Oh, sweet mystery of FreeBSD versioning. 15.1-Release already came out. (Yes. I know.)

by justin66 8d ago

alex1138 8d ago
Akshually- Edit: I love HN. I'm obviously joking, but instant 4 downvotes We're allowed to have fun, guys.
- justin66 8d ago
  Present and accounted for ^^
yjftsjthsd-h 8d ago
Having multiple maintained versions isn't a mystery. (Although figuring out which one you want might be; I'm.... 80%... sure you want the highest numbered "RELEASE", not "STABLE", but not 100%).
- assimpleaspossi 8d ago
  For production, yes, use RELEASE.
  - justin66 8d ago
    Yeah, but which one? Also, real businesses use -CURRENT, everybody knows that.
    - BoredomIsFun 8d ago
      > Also, real businesses use -CURRENT, everybody knows that. No, not really.
      - drewg123 8d ago
        I have thousands of CDN servers that would disagree with you. https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/OpenFest2023.pdf https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/OpenFest2023.pdf
        BoredomIsFun 8d ago
        Netflix is just a single point. I'd never run current in production.
        icedchai 8d ago
        It may be more common than you think. The latest version of pfSense CE is on 16.0-CURRENT.
        CursedSilicon 8d ago
        PFsense gleefully ships vulnerable code to their own customers. They are an even worse data point https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/buffer-overruns-license-violations-and-bad-code-freebsd-13s-close-call/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/buffer-overruns-lice...
        cperciva 8d ago
        -CURRENT is great for cattle. For pets, I recommend -RELEASE.
        crest 7d ago
        A CDN *cache* server is a special case. Netflix cache appliances can accept the risk of running FreeBSD -CURRENT and upgrading half their fleet to the latest snapshot every ~2 weeks and we thank them for battle testing FreeBSD's active development branch in production. It really helps to reveal regressions (both correctness and performance) early in the subsystems and drivers that matter to their usecase. Most users will neither be willing nor able to accept the trade-offs that Netflix chose.
    - ArchOversight 8d ago
      14.x-RELEASE if you still need i386 support, 15.x-RELEASE if you are installing new and want the longest longevity.
      - justin66 7d ago
        Nobody is running i386 in production, I would think. It’s fun to imagine someone actually might be…
        ArchOversight 5d ago
        I know a ton of embedded shops that are running x86 (including some actual i386 still) in production, and will likely for years to come. That stuff was bullet proof, cheap and still runs today. Some of these things have long lifetimes.
  - adrian_b 8d ago
    I cannot imagine any reason why somebody would want to use RELEASE for production. A RELEASE is good for installing FreeBSD on a new computer, or for upgrading from a previous major version of FreeBSD, e.g. from 13 to 14 or from 14 to 15. After installing a RELEASE, you normally update it to STABLE, before starting to use the computer. STABLE versions correspond to the long-term-support versions of Linux, i.e. they include only essential back-ported patches, like security patches or bug fixes. RELEASE are the initial versions, like a Linux x.x.0 version, which may have various problems that are discovered later and corrected in the STABLE versions. I have been running FreeBSD continuously 24/7 on many servers for more than a quarter of century, and I have always used STABLE on them (after installing RELEASE first, especially when upgrading from an older major version, to minimize the risks of incompatibilities).
    - cyberpunk 8d ago
      This is not correct, stable is a dev branch, so you’ve been running your 24/7 machines off of unreleased code: “FreeBSD-STABLE is the development branch from which major releases are made.” (https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/cutting-edge https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/cutting-edge) probably works, but i’m not doing that on my prod thanks. (perhaps you’re thinking of the releng/foo branches instead?)
      - adrian_b 8d ago
        Yes, looking at the current handbook, today you are right and my posting was wrong. However, this is because the policy of FreeBSD has changed. Decades ago, when I started using FreeBSD, STABLE was like I said, the recommended branch for production and frequently it was strictly necessary to update to STABLE because it had important patches missing in RELEASE. It appears that they have changed this some years ago. However, I was oblivious to this, because it did not affect me as I do not track automatically their STABLE versions, but I do only some audited updates.
        crest 7d ago
        If you run the latest (laptop) hardware you may still have to track stable or backport some patches from -CURRENT.
- joey486DX4 8d ago
  Nobody asked, but a quarter century ago we used FreeBSD stable with current ports in a small business setting. A mostly unchanging base system but always the most recent user facing software (KDE iirc). Linux distros only recently started doing this with the rise of flatpaks on top of immutable distros (or Debian stable).
  - kev009 8d ago
    pfSense is -CURRENT, Netflix OCA is -CURRENT, etc. It's not too hard.
    - sscaryterry 8d ago
      https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/pfsense-software-embraces-change-a-strategic-migration-to-the-linux-kernel.92964/ https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/pfsense-software-embraces... :)
      - CursedSilicon 8d ago
        That seems to be an "April Folks Joke"
  - denimboy 8d ago
    username checks out

Oh, sweet mystery of FreeBSD versioning. 15.1-Release already came out. (Yes. I know.)

alex1138 8d ago

Akshually- Edit: I love HN. I'm obviously joking, but instant 4 downvotes We're allowed to have fun, guys.

justin66 8d ago
Present and accounted for ^^

yjftsjthsd-h 8d ago

Having multiple maintained versions isn't a mystery. (Although figuring out which one you want might be; I'm.... 80%... sure you want the highest numbered "RELEASE", not "STABLE", but not 100%).

assimpleaspossi 8d ago
For production, yes, use RELEASE.
- justin66 8d ago
  Yeah, but which one? Also, real businesses use -CURRENT, everybody knows that.
  - BoredomIsFun 8d ago
    > Also, real businesses use -CURRENT, everybody knows that. No, not really.
    - drewg123 8d ago
      I have thousands of CDN servers that would disagree with you. https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/OpenFest2023.pdf https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/OpenFest2023.pdf
      - BoredomIsFun 8d ago
        Netflix is just a single point. I'd never run current in production.
        icedchai 8d ago
        It may be more common than you think. The latest version of pfSense CE is on 16.0-CURRENT.
        CursedSilicon 8d ago
        PFsense gleefully ships vulnerable code to their own customers. They are an even worse data point https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/buffer-overruns-license-violations-and-bad-code-freebsd-13s-close-call/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/buffer-overruns-lice...
      - cperciva 8d ago
        -CURRENT is great for cattle. For pets, I recommend -RELEASE.
      - crest 7d ago
        A CDN *cache* server is a special case. Netflix cache appliances can accept the risk of running FreeBSD -CURRENT and upgrading half their fleet to the latest snapshot every ~2 weeks and we thank them for battle testing FreeBSD's active development branch in production. It really helps to reveal regressions (both correctness and performance) early in the subsystems and drivers that matter to their usecase. Most users will neither be willing nor able to accept the trade-offs that Netflix chose.
  - ArchOversight 8d ago
    14.x-RELEASE if you still need i386 support, 15.x-RELEASE if you are installing new and want the longest longevity.
    - justin66 7d ago
      Nobody is running i386 in production, I would think. It’s fun to imagine someone actually might be…
      - ArchOversight 5d ago
        I know a ton of embedded shops that are running x86 (including some actual i386 still) in production, and will likely for years to come. That stuff was bullet proof, cheap and still runs today. Some of these things have long lifetimes.
- adrian_b 8d ago
  I cannot imagine any reason why somebody would want to use RELEASE for production. A RELEASE is good for installing FreeBSD on a new computer, or for upgrading from a previous major version of FreeBSD, e.g. from 13 to 14 or from 14 to 15. After installing a RELEASE, you normally update it to STABLE, before starting to use the computer. STABLE versions correspond to the long-term-support versions of Linux, i.e. they include only essential back-ported patches, like security patches or bug fixes. RELEASE are the initial versions, like a Linux x.x.0 version, which may have various problems that are discovered later and corrected in the STABLE versions. I have been running FreeBSD continuously 24/7 on many servers for more than a quarter of century, and I have always used STABLE on them (after installing RELEASE first, especially when upgrading from an older major version, to minimize the risks of incompatibilities).
  - cyberpunk 8d ago
    This is not correct, stable is a dev branch, so you’ve been running your 24/7 machines off of unreleased code: “FreeBSD-STABLE is the development branch from which major releases are made.” (https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/cutting-edge https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/cutting-edge) probably works, but i’m not doing that on my prod thanks. (perhaps you’re thinking of the releng/foo branches instead?)
    - adrian_b 8d ago
      Yes, looking at the current handbook, today you are right and my posting was wrong. However, this is because the policy of FreeBSD has changed. Decades ago, when I started using FreeBSD, STABLE was like I said, the recommended branch for production and frequently it was strictly necessary to update to STABLE because it had important patches missing in RELEASE. It appears that they have changed this some years ago. However, I was oblivious to this, because it did not affect me as I do not track automatically their STABLE versions, but I do only some audited updates.
      - crest 7d ago
        If you run the latest (laptop) hardware you may still have to track stable or backport some patches from -CURRENT.
joey486DX4 8d ago
Nobody asked, but a quarter century ago we used FreeBSD stable with current ports in a small business setting. A mostly unchanging base system but always the most recent user facing software (KDE iirc). Linux distros only recently started doing this with the rise of flatpaks on top of immutable distros (or Debian stable).
- kev009 8d ago
  pfSense is -CURRENT, Netflix OCA is -CURRENT, etc. It's not too hard.
  - sscaryterry 8d ago
    https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/pfsense-software-embraces-change-a-strategic-migration-to-the-linux-kernel.92964/ https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/pfsense-software-embraces... :)
    - CursedSilicon 8d ago
      That seems to be an "April Folks Joke"
- denimboy 8d ago
  username checks out