# FreeBSD 9.2 or 10?



## xy16644 (Dec 31, 2013)

I had a look at the FreeBSD 10 release schedule and I see that it has been postponed again. I guess the final release will come out mid January and possibly even later.

I currently have a new server I have built over the holidays that is ready to have FreeBSD installed on it. Is there any downside to installing FreeBSD 9.2 STABLE and all the ports I use on my new server now and then later on upgrading to FreeBSD 10 STABLE? Or should I rather wait for FreeBSD 10 to be released? I know I have to recompile all the ports I have installed on 9.2 when  upgrading to 10 but that doesn't matter.

The one thing I have been thinking about is clang. When you upgrade from 9 to 10 will clang be enabled?

Thoughts? Should I wait for 10? Or go ahead with 9.2 for now? I have 3 days of holiday this week so want to make use of them building the server!  :e


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## sgeos (Dec 31, 2013)

What are you going to use your sever for?

I have installed a prerelease version of 10 on my server.  The plan is to wipe everything and reinstall at some point in the future.


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## kpa (Dec 31, 2013)

CLang is the default compiler in FreeBSD10 and GCC is removed from base by default. If you want "support" for the OS meaning you can't really tinker with the system yourself too much because either lack the time or the expertise to do so you're better off using 9.2-RELEASE now and wait for 10.1-RELEASE because 10.0-RELEASE will be a "glorified beta" more than a proper release and unexpected problems may show up. 10.0-RELEASE will not be an extended support release because of that.


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## xy16644 (Dec 31, 2013)

I wouldn't call myself a FreeBSD expert but I know my way around FreeBSD quite well. I'm just trying to figure out if I should wait a few more weeks for 10 or if I should start the build now with 9.2.

I think I'll start the build with 9.2-RELEASE and then upgrade to 9.2-STABLE. I really want to use my holiday time this week to get the build going (and I have lots to do). At least this way I can monitor how 10.0 is when its released. 

And who knows, 10.0 may be delayed again...


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## gkontos (Dec 31, 2013)

xy16644 said:
			
		

> Thoughts? Should I wait for 10? Or go ahead with 9.2 for now? I have 3 days of holiday this week so want to make use of them building the server!  :e



I would personally use 10.0-RC3 and then upgrade to RELEASE.


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## xy16644 (Dec 31, 2013)

I don't think I'm brave enough for that just yet!


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## wblock@ (Dec 31, 2013)

For a server... maybe.  If I did it, I would probably go with 10-STABLE, because changes, bug fixes, and updates are going to be pretty frequent for a while.

10-STABLE has been fine on this desktop.  Clang is fast and works well.  One big change for a server is that in 10.0, BIND is no longer part of the base system.


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## xy16644 (Dec 31, 2013)

I have 10-STABLE installed currently on my server and all seems fine with it but I'm still unsure if I should setup my server like this to be used in production? Can you upgrade from 10-STABLE (or pre release) to 10-STABLE (final version)? I also see that RC4 is coming "soon".

I don't use BIND so no worries there.


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## kpa (Dec 31, 2013)

10-STABLE is "rolling release" meaning there's no final release of it until the branch gets discontinued some time (hopefully after a very long time) in the future. You can however switch from 10-STABLE to 10.0-RELEASE by replacing your stable/10 sources with releng/10.0 sources and doing a full source based upgrade (that will be in reality slightly backwards because the 10-STABLE is now newer than 10.0-RELEASE RCs).


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## xy16644 (Dec 31, 2013)

I'm happy to have 10-STABLE running on my server. I'm just unsure if the *current* version of 10-STABLE is suitable yet? More specifically, when I run `uname -a` it says I am running 10.0-PRERELEASE (this is from checking out the stable/10 branch). I don't really want to run RELEASE anymore. Can I upgrade from 10.0-PRERELEASE to 10.0-STABLE when it is available (or finalised)? I'd like to avoid RC3/4 if possible.

So I guess the options are:


1) 9.2-STABLE

2) 10.0-STABLE (although this says PRERELEASE at the moment)

I'm assuming that 10.0 is pretty close to completion so the current RC3/4 or STABLE code must be almost production ready?


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## wblock@ (Dec 31, 2013)

With -STABLE, you get whatever is there when it is checked out or updated.  Currently, that is "PRERELEASE".  After 10.0 is released and you update source and rebuild, that will change to saying just "-STABLE".


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## xy16644 (Dec 31, 2013)

As soon as 10.0-RELEASE is out, is STABLE available at the same time? 

If you upgrade from 9.2 to 10.0 STABLE are all the 10.0 features enabled? Like clang and, from what I understand, there are some greate geli performance improvements.

I'm tempted to try 10.0 PRERELEASE!


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## wblock@ (Dec 31, 2013)

xy16644 said:
			
		

> As soon as 10.0-RELEASE is out, is STABLE available at the same time?



Yes.  Actually, 10-STABLE is available now.  It's not a fixed point.  Note that this is from source, I don't know whether freebsd-update(8) handles it.



> If you upgrade from 9.2 to 10.0 STABLE are all the 10.0 features enabled?



Yes, it would not be 10.0 otherwise.


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## xy16644 (Dec 31, 2013)

Is clang on FreeBSD 9.2-STABLE ok? Is it ok to enable it in this version?


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