# New section for older FreeBSD in forums.



## mfaridi (May 15, 2019)

If we have sections about older FreeBSD like FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9, we can help FreeBSD users to solve their problem and can help them improve their knowledge and help them stay in FreeBSD world and do not move to another world like Linux.
I see many topics about the problems in  FreeBSD 8 and 9 and many users try to solve this problem by saying the end of life and do not help them to solve their problem.
in this section, we will help them to find a way to solve their problems and let them learn new things about FreeBSD great OS in the world.
I think this is not a good answer your OS is the end of life and we can not help you.
Some new application does not support new FreeBSD, but they work like charm in older FreeBSD and still using.


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## tommiie (May 15, 2019)

mfaridi said:


> help them stay in FreeBSD world and do not move to another world like Linux.



So you believe those people do not want to *install *a newer version of FreeBSD to solve their problems, but they do want to *install *a Linux and migrate their environment in order to solve their problems?


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## mfaridi (May 15, 2019)

I do not think so, some new application like Plesk and games do not support the new version of FreeBSD.


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## zirias@ (May 15, 2019)

mfaridi said:


> I think this is not a good answer your OS is the end of life and we can not help you.


This is, and will always be, the *only possible* answer. End-of-life means no more patches, IOW gaping security holes. Running such a system is grossly negligent.

Upgrading FreeBSD on the other hand shouldn't give problems to anyone, and people here will be happy to guide if necessary.


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## tommiie (May 15, 2019)

mfaridi said:


> I do not think so, some new application like Plesk and games do not support the new version of FreeBSD.


Always use the right tool for the job. FreeBSD is just a tool, it is not sacred. If FreeBSD is not supported, I rather have those people migrate those Plesk servers away from FreeBSD and onto Linux than have them run an EOL version of FreeBSD.


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## malavon (May 15, 2019)

mfaridi said:


> I do not think so, some new application like Plesk and games do not support the new version of FreeBSD.


That's why FreeBSD has the compatxx packages. These exist for versions going back to FreeBSD 4 which is over 15 years old. Talking about compatibility I'd say 
Of course that's not true for packages inside the ports tree that may have moved on to a newer version, but even that can be handled manually to install an old one and locking it into place.
And that comes with all the goodies of a new OS like support on the forum, ZFS, pkg and much, much more.

Also, how many binary-only games are there specifically for FreeBSD? I don't know about Plesk, but I do know about games and there are none as far as I know.


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## SirDice (May 15, 2019)

malavon said:


> Also, how many binary-only games are there specifically for FreeBSD?


I know of one game in particular. And the mere mentioning of it will get you banned real quick.



mfaridi said:


> If we have sections about older FreeBSD like FreeBSD 8 and FreeBSD 9, we can help FreeBSD users to solve their problem and can help them improve their knowledge and help them stay in FreeBSD world and do not move to another world like Linux.


You are mistaken. How far do you think they'll get with an out-of-date and unsupported Linux distribution? They'll get the exact same responses, update. And people "threatening" to leave? I never understood that, it's such a hollow threat. If you want to leave for apparent greener pastures, stop moaning about it and go. You're not married to an OS, if you think you can do better with another OS then by all means, give it a go.  

Note that we do help people with older versions to _upgrade_ to a recent and supported version. But most of the time people still running these ancient versions do so for all the wrong reasons. People that have really good reasons to run an old version generally don't require user support.


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## malavon (May 15, 2019)

SirDice said:


> I know of one game in particular. And the mere mentioning of it will get you banned real quick.


I am a _very_ curious person. Now I won't be able to ever sleep again until I know what this is about 
Also, I'm kidding a little. But I am genuinly interested in more info, I'd really appreciate it if you could PM me about this.


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## SirDice (May 15, 2019)

malavon said:


> I am a _very_ curious person. Now I won't be able to ever sleep again until I know what this is about


It's even stickied, and yet we still get the occasional id-ten-t that seems to be completely oblivious to it. 









						Do not post METIN / METIN2 topics on these forums!
					

Copied the sticky to the General forum for slightly higher visibility.  METIN-2 / METIN2 and other illegal software - don't ask for assistance on these forums. Threads will be closed, posters will be banned.    Factfinding: The server files are indeed leaked, so we're basically talking about an...




					forums.freebsd.org


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## malavon (May 15, 2019)

I indeed never read that, didn't know what it was and thus didn't care. Thanks for letting me know, too bad there isn't a juicier story


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## SirDice (May 15, 2019)

malavon said:


> Thanks for letting me know, too bad there isn't a juicier story


We used to have a thread where we collected all of them, that made an interesting read. Good for a laugh, or two. But it looks like the thread got culled during a clean up some time ago.


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## PMc (May 15, 2019)

The whole matter is merely theoretical. You don't get support for either new or old versions because you don't have any contract that would oblidge anybody to provide support. The whole thing is about finding some person who may know an answer, and that is always the same no matter of version.

The only difference of "supported" versions is that there may be security patches (or there may not be, because the people discovering the breach decided to keep that to themselves and not communicate it thru the official channels). I do not buy into the mass hysteria about these security patches. About 98% of them, when evaluated (and I do evaluate them) do not apply to my specific configurations or are just DoS vectors. There are a lot of other things that might make a system crash (and therefore leading to DoS) which are not cared for in a similar fashion.


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## SirDice (May 15, 2019)

The problem is often not related to FreeBSD itself. But generally it's a third party application they have problems with. People who don't update their OS typically don't update their applications either. They've installed it once, then let it go stale for several years and are suddenly confronted with the rest of the world having moved on. 



PMc said:


> The only difference of "supported" versions is that there may be security patches (or there may not be, because the people discovering the breach decided to keep that to themselves and not communicate it thru the official channels).


Also note that updates to the ports system can break compatibility with older, EoL, versions. Just try to build something from a recent, up to date, ports tree on FreeBSD 8 for example.


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## PMc (May 15, 2019)

SirDice said:


> The problem is often not related to FreeBSD itself. But generally it's a third party application they have problems with. People who don't update their OS typically don't update their applications either. They've installed it once, then let it go stale for several years and are suddenly confronted with the rest of the world having moved on.



In itself that is a valid approach. "Never change a running system", i.e. no maintenance might still be one of the most efficient maintenance schemes, and a week of downtime for a full rebuild every five years is also not too bad - I went for that in times when I had other interesting things to pursue. But then there are some rules, and the most important is: as soon as you want to change something, and be it just a feature of some application, the whole housekeeping suite becomes necessary. And sadly, people tend to forget that.


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## mfaridi (May 15, 2019)

SirDice said:


> I know of one game in particular. And the mere mentioning of it will get you banned real quick.
> 
> 
> You are mistaken. How far do you think they'll get with an out-of-date and unsupported Linux distribution? They'll get the exact same responses, update. And people "threatening" to leave? I never understood that, it's such a hollow threat. If you want to leave for apparent greener pastures, stop moaning about it and go. You're not married to an OS, if you think you can do better with another OS then by all means, give it a go.
> ...


nice tips,
but some application has better performance by FreeBSD and not Linux, in these 15 years experiences in FreeBSD and Linux, I see some application has better performance than Linux. 
for example, Plesk worked better in FreeBSD than Linux, but we have to move to another panel because they do not support FreeBSD.


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## mfaridi (May 15, 2019)

malavon said:


> That's why FreeBSD has the compatxx packages. These exist for versions going back to FreeBSD 4 which is over 15 years old. Talking about compatibility I'd say
> Of course that's not true for packages inside the ports tree that may have moved on to a newer version, but even that can be handled manually to install an old one and locking it into place.
> And that comes with all the goodies of a new OS like support on the forum, ZFS, pkg and much, much more.
> 
> Also, how many binary-only games are there specifically for FreeBSD? I don't know about Plesk, but I do know about games and there are none as far as I know.


but some application depends on the whole system.


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## Sevendogsbsd (May 15, 2019)

It is less of an issue with a desktop but is a huge issue for a server providing a web application that is accessible to the Internet. Unless the application is protected by a WAF, IPS, etc, not updating a web server or framework is asking for trouble. I test web applications every single day and find vulnerabilities constantly because of various reasons, some of which are lack of updates.

If you take on the responsibility of hosting a web application, you must take on the responsibility of patching the systems supporting that application. To not do so is just placing your, or worse, your customer's data, at risk and is very irresponsible.


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## zirias@ (May 15, 2019)

Sevendogsbsd said:


> If you take on the responsibility of hosting a web application, you must take on the responsibility of patching the systems supporting that application. To not do so is just placing your, or worse, your customer's data, at risk and is very irresponsible.


Maybe stating the obvious, but it seems to me that plesk is a first-class example of a service you don't want to run on an un-patched system ...


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## mfaridi (May 15, 2019)

for example, does not support a new version of FreeBSD and we do not support users use old Plesk and old FreeBSD too. I start this post because some problems depend on the old FreeBSD version, they try to find a way to solve the problems and we say this version is the end of life. 
we have a production systems on old FreeBSD and work like charm.


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## SirDice (May 15, 2019)

mfaridi said:


> Plesk worked better in FreeBSD than Linux, but we have to move to another panel because they do not support FreeBSD.


Does Plesk need to update their code and support recent versions of FreeBSD or does FreeBSD have to keep supporting old versions because Plesk can't or won't update their code? 



mfaridi said:


> but we have to move to another panel because they do not support FreeBSD.


And that's the only way you can show Plesk you don't agree with their policy, move to an application or company that _does_ provide adequate support.


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## PMc (May 15, 2019)

Sevendogsbsd said:


> It is less of an issue with a desktop but is a huge issue for a server providing a web application that is accessible to the Internet.



On a desktop it depends on what you do with it. If you go banking or e-shopping or onto dubious sites, I would highly recommend to have recent fixes (due to the Spectre issues - unless you can evaluate the actual risk).
On an internet-facing server it is obvious - as soon as there is a fixed ip or fixed domain, hell breaks loose almost immediately.

But then there are those machines that do a certain workload and are way behind some DMZ and should not be touchable by any hostile force, and there it shouldn't matter.


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## Sevendogsbsd (May 15, 2019)

PMc - agree, but you still have to worry about machines in an enclave (behind DMZ) because of things like sql injection. I can reach out and touch a database through a web application using sql injection. That is more a case of how the web app itself is designed, but regardless, patching is important.


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## abishai (May 15, 2019)

SirDice said:


> I know of one game in particular. And the mere mentioning of it will get you banned real quick.


It was patched to support modern FreeBSD ;-)

As for OP, I saw FreeBSD 6 on real hardware in production (internal mail server). No one wants to touch it and it works with 10+ years uptime. I'm in serious doubt it can be easily updated now.


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## SirDice (May 15, 2019)

PMc said:


> But then there are those machines that do a certain workload and are way behind some DMZ and should not be touchable by any hostile force, and there it shouldn't matter.


Lots of high profile hacks have been done by insiders, so I'm not so sure about that in this day and age. We keep the bad guys at bay using all sorts of security measures making it very difficult for them to get it. But never, ever, forget you're giving the keys to the kingdom to your employees. They don't need to "break in", they're already there. They don't need to probe or analyze how the network is set up, you've already given them plenty of information about your most vulnerable systems.


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## mfaridi (May 15, 2019)

SirDice said:


> Does Plesk need to update their code and support recent versions of FreeBSD or does FreeBSD have to keep supporting old versions because Plesk can't or won't update their code?
> 
> 
> And that's the only way you can show Plesk you don't agree with their policy, move to an application or company that _does_ provide adequate support.


Plesk does not support a new version of FreeBSD, but if we have some problem and try to solve the problem, in forums we say this version is the end of life and do not try to solve the problem. 
I start this post to help users with the old version of FreeBSD to solve their problems. 
I do not want some application like Plesk to make support for the new version of FreeBSD, but we have users still use old FreeBSD and try to help them to solve their problem.


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## Sevendogsbsd (May 15, 2019)

Excellent point: about 70% (~) of the threat to a given system is insider threat.


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## zirias@ (May 15, 2019)

mfaridi said:


> I start this post to help users with the old version of FreeBSD to solve their problems.


You don't seem to get the point. Anyone running any public service on an old OS that's EOL and unsupported already has a *huge *problem. This is especially true for a service like plesk that allows remote administrative tasks. The only way to solve this problem is to move to a supported, up-to-date operating system. If this, in the case of plesk, indeed means to install a different brand like e.g. Linux, then that's the only way to go, short of abandoning plesk, of course. Anything else is just asking to be "owned".


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## mfaridi (May 15, 2019)

Zirias said:


> You don't seem to get the point. Anyone running any public service on an old OS that's EOL and unsupported already has a *huge *problem. This is especially true for a service like plesk that allows remote administrative tasks. The only way to solve this problem is to move to a supported, up-to-date operating system. If this, in the case of plesk, indeed means to install a different brand like e.g. Linux, then that's the only way to go, short of abandoning plesk, of course. Anything else is just asking to be "owned".


You are right but help users with old FreeBSD is important, when we say the end of life, they throw away from FreeBSD world.


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## zirias@ (May 15, 2019)

mfaridi said:


> when we say the end of life, they throw away from FreeBSD world.


I doubt that very much, upgrading isn't hard in general. But anyways, I'd strongly prefer that over seeing a lot of cracked outdated FreeBSD boxes. "Helping" with operating an outdated FreeBSD version would give the very wrong impression that this was somehow a reasonable thing to do.


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## malavon (May 15, 2019)

mfaridi said:


> You are right but help users with old FreeBSD is important, when we say the end of life, they throw away from FreeBSD world.


I'm pretty sure most of us understand your problem, but I'm not sure you understand the possible issues that your users face using an incredibly old version of FreeBSD.
Helping them move to something more secure, either Plex on another OS or FreeBSD with another tool is the only responsible thing to do.
That said, I know the pain you'd be going through trying to explain this to them.

Just throwing this in here, ever taken a look at sysutils/froxlor?
It's pretty basic, but might get things done.


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## mfaridi (May 16, 2019)

In the real world, we have many many servers running as production systems and does not upgrade cause of cannot work with new OS and developer cannot match their software or application with the new OS, in some telecommunications company, these are happening.  
I know the production system with 20 years old age OS and work like charm if something bad happens for the OS or software, they have a nightmare.


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## zirias@ (May 16, 2019)

So, just asking, would you share the network address of said system? Rhethorical question, of course, so, don't ...


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## tommiie (May 16, 2019)

mfaridi said:


> if something bad happens for the OS or software, they have a nightmare.


Instead of paying top-dollar for support on that ancient software, they better invest in setting up a redundant cluster to replace that software with a newer version.

I see that too in the industry, non-redundant servers that are very old, no body dares touches it afraid it will break down and bring the entire company to a halt. But instead of keeping those ancient non-redundant servers alive, it's better to pull off the band-aid now and invest in setting up new systems which are redundant and are running the latest versions which are being supported. That is the short pain, believe it or not.


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## Sevendogsbsd (May 16, 2019)

Having an old system that supports a software application is fine, if the system is not on the network, or the Internet. Once you put a system on a network or worse, on the Internet, you are asking for trouble.


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## ralphbsz (May 16, 2019)

Look, we are all volunteers here.  I come here because (a) I get my questions answered, often without even asking them, (b) it is amusing, and (c) I can help some people.  The question that needs to be asked: Of the limited amount of time I have available for part (c), how should I invest it?

I have ample experience with running up-to-date software, and with running obsolete software.  Just in the FreeBSD realm: right now, my system is absolutely up-to-date (I run freebsd-update and pkg upgrade weekly, or if I feel lazy every two weeks), but for about 5 years I ran an obsolete version (got stuck on 9.X for several years, before making a giant leap to 11.X with a complete reinstall).  I get it that making a giant reinstall leap is a lot of work, and that's why I have changed how I run my personal FreeBSD system, because spending 15 minutes per week is much less painful than spending 3 solid days after 5 years.  But I think the situation that mfaridi describes (where one is stuck on an old OS version because of a piece of application software that is incompatible with newer versions) is actually very rare; in most cases, one is still better off going forward than becoming stuck with old versions.

The real question I have to ask myself is this: Of the limited time I have available for helping people who ask questions here, how should I invest it?  I think it's more sensible to help people who have problems with the current version, because those problems can be solved more efficiently.  To begin with, if someone asks a question about version 8.X or 9.X, I can't even read the man pages for that easily, much less look at example output from commands.  So for better or for worse, I will choose to help people who can be helped easily and efficiently.

If someone really insists on running an old version, they need to accept that this will cause them to have a higher support burden.  And that they will have to pay for that support burden, because finding free volunteer support is hard.  We, as a community of free volunteers, should rather explain to them that they are better off upgrading, even if it causes short-term pain.


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## sidetone (May 16, 2019)

One thing I did see was a RocketRaid SATA card, that the box and instructions said it was compatible with FreeBSD 5, 6 or some slightly older version, and it came with a FreeBSD driver. Unfortunately, drivers for that same manufacturer that came with FreeBSD 7 and newer didn't work with that slightly older card. I couldn't get that older driver that came with the box to work on a newer supported FreeBSD either. It was a long time ago when most motherboards only had PATA connections, and that card is obsolete in most cases by motherboard hardware by now.


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## Datapanic (May 17, 2019)

mfaridi said:


> In the real world, we have many many servers running as production systems and does not upgrade cause of cannot work with new OS and developer cannot match their software or application with the new OS, in some telecommunications company, these are happening.
> I know the production system with 20 years old age OS and work like charm if something bad happens for the OS or software, they have a nightmare.



Well, it's time to get rid of that old developer that cannot keep up with current operating systems.  Let me say it twice - it's time to get rid of that old developer that cannot keep up with current operating systems.  I've worked IT in the "real world" for 30 years, and it's a fail of the SA (systems Administrator) of any business, university, company or otherwise who cannot keep their systems that they're responsible for up to date.  There is absolutely no excuse.


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## PMc (May 17, 2019)

Datapanic said:


> Well, it's time to get rid of that old developer that cannot keep up with current operating systems.  Let me say it twice - it's time to get rid of that old developer that cannot keep up with current operating systems.  I've worked IT in the "real world" for 30 years, and it's a fail of the SA (systems Administrator) of any business, university, company or otherwise who cannot keep their systems that they're responsible for up to date.  There is absolutely no excuse.



Judge not, that ye be not judged.


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## badbrain (May 17, 2019)

The fact is FreeBSD support time is too short. If I'm developer, even on Linux, I would choose to develop for Redhat or Ubuntu LTS (except vaporware). It takes time, money and effort to write software. I expect I could earn money or at least keep my products functioning long enough and focus on improve stability and features. I don't want to deal with adapting my software to work with new release and you release very often and usually break thing. Your upgrade tool sucks. Anyone still remember or just forgot, the pain of upgrading to 12.0 once occupied this forum? Lua Loader not boot, do you remember it? If not then I should gone.


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## zirias@ (May 17, 2019)

badbrain said:


> you release very often and usually break thing. Your upgrade tool sucks.


Right .. Linux clearly is the system maintaining stable APIs. You're trolling, but nice try.


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## malavon (May 17, 2019)

badbrain said:


> The fact is FreeBSD support time is too short. If I'm developer, even on Linux, I would choose to develop for Redhat or Ubuntu LTS (except vaporware). It takes time, money and effort to write software. I expect I could earn money or at least keep my products functioning long enough and focus on improve stability and features. I don't want to deal with adapting my software to work with new release and you release very often and usually break thing. Your upgrade tool sucks. Anyone still remember or just forgot, the pain of upgrading to 12.0 once occupied this forum? Lua Loader not boot, do you remember it? If not then I should gone.


I would kindly refer you to post #6 in this thread. Also, FreeBSD's kernel API's don't change much between versions which makes writing and maintaining software really easy. I don't have enough experience with Linux API's to do a comparison though.
Regarding the freebsd-update tool - as  someone using FreeBSD since version 4.x - I disagree with you based on personal experience.


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## badbrain (May 17, 2019)

Zirias said:


> Right .. Linux clearly is the system maintaining stable APIs. You're trolling, but nice try.


Read my post again. Linux break things, and FreeBSD, too. But we have LTS Linux, at least assurance. On FreeBSD, we have none.


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## badbrain (May 17, 2019)

So childish. I give you dislike and you give me back one, too. Make me laugh. Every time you see something opposed to your own idea you immediately accuse it will troll, huh? Keep your cult, I left.


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## zirias@ (May 17, 2019)

Bye, have fun.


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## Emrion (May 17, 2019)

I'm considering all arguments but... You have some users, despite of what you whish, that use outdated versions. Many of you think that's evil. However, evil is somehow a part of freedom. 

I ain't sure the better answer is to close the eyes, to be so affirmative. Not to mention that the evocated problem could be current.


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## sidetone (May 17, 2019)

badbrain
Please stop bringing up Ubuntu. I get that you like it, but keep that on their forums and elsewhere. This is a FreeBSD forum.

And off topic: I don't see how a bloated system can benefit a professional one. It doesn't, but it's an OS that is the only or few benchmarks for some.


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## ralphbsz (May 17, 2019)

badbrain said:


> ... I would choose to develop for Redhat or Ubuntu LTS (except vaporware). ...


I don't know about Ubuntu LTS; I don't even remember the last time I installed Ubuntu.

In the case of Redhat, you are comparing apples and oranges.  RedHat's distribution is called RHEL, and is not free.  You pay to install it, and you pay for support.  You are comparing it to FreeBSD, which is in itself free to download.  And in this thread we are discussing the free support that this forum provides; the OP mfaridi is of the opinion that this forum should help support older versions, others disagree.  Comparing this free support with paid support is ... problematic (a polite term for "trolling").


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## ralphbsz (May 17, 2019)

Emrion said:


> ... use outdated versions. Many of you think that's evil.


No, I don't think it's evil.  On the contrary, for about 5 years I did just that: because I didn't want to invest the (weekly) time to keep current with updates, I deliberately ran an older and older version of FreeBSD on my server.  At the time, I thought that was a sensible decision, and I knew the risks involved.  Matter-of-fact, if you dig back a year or two, you'll find a thread I started here asking how to go forward, and after getting advice, I decided to reinstall from scratch, which took me about 3 days full-time work (the bulk of that is not the base OS, but getting all the special-purpose stuff and customization stuff back together, including a lot of cleanup of deferred maintenance).  From that experience I learned that doing quick updates all the time is the sensible and efficient way to run FreeBSD.  Coincidentally, just yesterday I moved my machine to 11.2-p10 (from -p9). I also happen to have some computers at home that run 30-year old software, and I have no plans of upgrading them (even though VMS is still upgradeable).

Running old versions of FreeBSD is a choice.  I no longer think it is a good choice, and I don't want to invest my time into helping people making the same mistake I did.  But I'm not going hit them with sticks to stop them; it's their freedom.


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## PMc (May 17, 2019)

ralphbsz said:


> No, I don't think it's evil.  On the contrary, for about 5 years I did just that: because I didn't want to invest the (weekly) time to keep current with updates, I deliberately ran an older and older version of FreeBSD on my server.  At the time, I thought that was a sensible decision, and I knew the risks involved.



Same here. I was dependent on ISDN, the ISDN-support was dropped in some Rel.7 or so, and I didn't dare to put the foreign ports from HPSelasky into my kernel, as I feared difficult problems (kernel hacking is not an easy thing, and I didn't have enough time for that). Actually, when I finally tried it, it went completely smooth.

There certainly are valid reasons to stay with an old version, and I am not to judge these reasons (and I couldn't see who were). 
I would rather see the whole thing as _fun-based_: I would help people with old versions if the concerned matter looks interesting me, just the same as with new versions. And I now have written a deployment scheme that does rollout new versions almost automatically (while pulling in all my local stuff and patches), and it is real fun to watch that work (in fact it is rather audible: the fans go fullspeed). So, again, this is no kind of fetish of "thou must <whatever>", but simply _fun-based_.


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## shkhln (May 17, 2019)

badbrain said:


> Ubuntu LTS



As an example of excellent Ubuntu support: https://bugs.launchpad.net/trusty-backports/+bug/1368094. I especially like that this bug is not even closed with some "we won't do that" resolution. Also note that Launchpad doesn't differentiate people working on Ubuntu packages from regular users. That makes reading long issue threads _really_ awkward.


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## badbrain (May 18, 2019)

Just to be clear. When I write Redhat, it means CentOS. When I write Ubuntu, I mentioned the Desktop variant, not sever. Having a frozen system that only benefit from security updates and the rest remains the same is not that bad. If I developed a software linked with Qt 5.1 using gcc 5.3 shipped with the distribution I could sure it will works until the distribution is EOL. I could make my software in maintenance mode and benefits the most from it util next LTS release. If I develop for rolling distribution like Arch, I have to constantly test and patch my software for the latest Qt version and make sure it will compile with latest gcc. It's wasting so much energy and time. Life is short.

I do not favor Ubuntu but I very want someday FreeBSD will have LTS release. I know nothing about the kernel, so I only said about userspace libraries and toolchain. When I said FreeBSD 12.0 break things, I do not said about ABI but the upgrade process break things. Setting up development environment is wasting time, too. Especially when you have to do it often. I found freebsd-update is unreliable. It worked for someone doesn't mean it worked for everyone. It also take so many steps to do just one thing that apt-get dist-upgrade then reboot and everything done.

I do not want to bash you. I only want you to change and improvements to make life easier.


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## badbrain (May 18, 2019)

I unwatched this thread, so I will not receive dislike notification for my post. The above is my last words about the problem. Bye.


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## Deleted member 9563 (May 18, 2019)

I think it was SirDice who suggested that people who maintain very old systems probably don't need help here, and I agree with that. If someone thinks they might find rare information here about an old system, I think they can always post as a general or off-topic thread, but generally speaking I'd probably send them over to Classic Comp.

Also, there seems to be some assumption going on in some posts.  Many of us are interested in computers as they are placed in society and general history. Our reasons for running them are quite different than the average Internet businessman or persons with economics interests.

I would also point out that not all commercial hardware (or software) is simply and safely upgraded. When there is a lot at stake, such as in the manufacturing industry, it is not always prudent to shut down a money-making process and take a chance. In the end, without a case relevant OPSEC it is difficult to comment intelligently on vulnerabilities.


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## CyberCr33p (May 18, 2019)

badbrain said:


> I do not favor Ubuntu but I very want someday FreeBSD will have LTS release. I know nothing about the kernel, so I only said about userspace libraries and toolchain. When I said FreeBSD 12.0 break things, I do not said about ABI but the upgrade process break things. Setting up development environment is wasting time, too. Especially when you have to do it often. I found freebsd-update is unreliable. It worked for someone doesn't mean it worked for everyone. It also take so many steps to do just one thing that apt-get dist-upgrade then reboot and everything done.



I install FreeBSD 8.0 and then I upgrade to all minor and major versions. Currently the image uses FreeBSD release 12.0-p5. I use it for servers and every upgrade is done without ANY issue. I keep a server as an "image" that hosts no active services and when I want to install it in a new server I use dump/restore. Setup of a new server takes less than 15 minutes. Currently I use this "image" for 58 servers. I think most issues that people are talking about is for desktop usage.


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## trev (May 19, 2019)

This would all seem to be a bit of a storm in a teacup. When users with "old" FreeBSD versions appear asking for help, they get help to upgrade to a supported "new" FreeBSD version. 

Trying to provide help to maintain an old, unsupported version is not a simple proposition as I know full well from bitter experience unless it is frozen in time and removed from general and internet access.

I also agree with Sir Dice, those who do need to maintain such a system know what they're doing and I wouldn't expect to see them asking users for help in this forum.


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## Terry_Kennedy (Jun 3, 2019)

trev said:


> This would all seem to be a bit of a storm in a teacup. When users with "old" FreeBSD versions appear asking for help, they get help to upgrade to a supported "new" FreeBSD version.
> 
> Trying to provide help to maintain an old, unsupported version is not a simple proposition as I know full well from bitter experience unless it is frozen in time and removed from general and internet access.
> 
> I also agree with Sir Dice, those who do need to maintain such a system know what they're doing and I wouldn't expect to see them asking users for help in this forum.


Sorry for the delay in responding (and perhaps unintentionally re-opening this discussion) but I was offline in the Mojave Desert for a month...

Over a decade ago, the freebsd-eol@ mailing list was created because some well-known users wanted to provide peer-to-peer support for EOL'd FreeBSD versions. After the first post, almost everything was spam except for a few people who had historical interest in older FreeBSD releases.

There are a number of people who support older FreeBSD versions. We have independently solved a number of problems (such as the "getting a current ports tree to build on FreeBSD 8.x" mentioned above), untimely removal of some ports (lang/php56 comes to mind) and so on. If I see a post here from someone with an issue I've already solved, I'll respond with something that is hopefully helpful. But don't expect me (or others) to go research a new issue with an older FreeBSD release.

This whole area had become much more of a concern to me when it looked like FreeBSD 12 was going to have a bizarrely short lifespan (archive.org link), but that was reverted without any fanfare (at least that I noticed) and it now gets the expected 5-year lifecycle.


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