# Default repository changed to quarterly in 10.2



## zsero (Aug 14, 2015)

The release notes for 10.2 mention at the very bottom that:

The default pkg(8) repository set in /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf now defaults to the quarterly package set. To use the latest branch (as was the previous default), the comment at the top of /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf explains how to disable the default repository and specify an alternative repository. [r285830] (Sponsored by The FreeBSD Foundation)​Which I believe is the most important change in this release and there is barely any information about it.

My questions:
1. Why did it happen, what is the reason behind it? Many people preferred FreeBSD because of the always up-to-date packages. Is it like a mini-LTS?

2. What does it mean about security updates? Are they backported from latest to quarterly? If so, how frequently are they released? Which Q releases do they support (only the latest one?)

3. When upgrading from stock 10.1, will pkg(8) be on latest or quarterly?

Finally, the information which is missing from the release notes and the comment in /etc is how to set it back to latest is found in this HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10058580

That is: create a file /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf with the following content:

```
FreeBSD: {
url: "pkg+http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/${ABI}/latest"
}
```

I'm a newcomer to FreeBSD but I find it very surprising that this big change is barely mentioned at the bottom of the release notes and the correct code for changing back to latest is not mentioned neither in the release notes nor in the /etc comment.


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## rabfulton (Aug 14, 2015)

I saw this when I did a `pkg upgrade -f some_pkg` and it downgraded the package!


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## hashime (Aug 14, 2015)

So my local installed version is now ahead of the remote repository. Great, I am sure this won't cause trouble anywhere.
So much for being stable.


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## storvi_net (Aug 15, 2015)

I think you "forgot" to enable the repository (or isn't it neccessary?)

```
FreeBSD: {
url: "pkg+http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/${ABI}/latest",
mirror_type: "srv",
signature_type: "fingerprints",
fingerprints: "/usr/share/keys/pkg",
enabled: yes
}
```

Regards
Markus


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## senj (Aug 15, 2015)

storvi_net said:


> I think you "forgot" to enable the repository (or isn't it neccessary?)



Nope. Read the pkg.conf(5) man page.



> The repository tag myrepo is an arbitrary string.  Reusing the repository
> tag will cause those items defined in configuration files later on the
> REPOS_DIR search path to overwrite the equivalent settings for the same
> tag earlier on the search path.  Hence the very common idiom, used to
> ...



In other words, you don't need to (and probably shouldn't) copypaste everything from /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf in /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf. /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf defines the repo, enables it, sets the mirror type, etc, and everything in it still applies. He's just overriding the url attribute in /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf.


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## rhsbsd (Sep 5, 2015)

Thanks for the very useful info. I had completely missed this on my first upgrade to FreeBSD 10.2 from 10.1. After merging groups and device hints I immediately did a `pkg upgrade`  and I saw a lot of complaints about "ABI" and had mistakenly thought that was due to the minor FreeBSD upgrade, but, alas my packages were ahead of the quarterly repo.  Needles to say the operating system started failing almost immediately and on my next reboot Xorg did not restart. Yes, completely obliterated my OS by missing this. Someone should place more emphasis on this change in the errata.


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