# Anyone Using FreeBSD-9-Current?



## Loki (Apr 7, 2011)

Hi! 

I had to replace my H/D so I figured I would just do a clean install. What I'm wondering, will FreeBSD 9 suffice as a desktop system after blowing away all of the debugging options in the kernel?

How stable is 9-current? I don't mind rebuilding world as updates are released, just wondering about usability/stability.

Thanks. :e


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## jb_fvwm2 (Apr 7, 2011)

If it builds, it might work.  I've ports which won't build on v9, that will build on v8, and vice versa. Aside,

```
kern.sched.preempt_thresh=224
```
one might put in /boot/loader.conf.  (sped up some things on v8 and does not break v9...). Your device names might change (ad0 > ada0) needing fstab rewrite at boot 
	
	



```
mount -o rw /dev/ad0s1a /
```
 or whatever to edit it in single-user mode.

Other gotchas (or not): there might also be a new usb 3.0 stack. ... etc etc...

I'd post your explicit install/upgrade procedure in detail, though, someone might spot a gotcha in it. Also, fewer ready packages: packages-8-stable VS packages-9-current.


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## gordon@ (Apr 7, 2011)

This is documented in the handbook:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html


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## Beeblebrox (Apr 7, 2011)

Works, with some pain, but the pain is from my shortcomings.  On the kernel build did not run into too many problems - all debug options disabled.

My system is desktop (+ different server-side ports) as a testing/learning ground for what I plan next.  So it's not critical if I break something but it is annoying when it happens. Many of my ports are ahead of the defaults (like php52 instead of php5) and this is where most of my frustration comes from (but that will be a different and separate rant about package depends management in FreeBSD).

An occasional (very few) broken build (usually the depend) is side-stepped with *pkg_add*, it then usually builds with the next update.

BOTTOM LINE: would recommend; but for sure use GPT partition and ZFS.  If you plan to use grub, remember grub_bios 64K partition for GPT.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Apr 7, 2011)

NOT_DOCUMENTED
THIS is a somewhat vague snippet of how I upgraded one disk.  Let's assume your prompt shows your current directory, your shell recalls commands with !rsy-TAB expanding to a multiline one, and your install-to disk on ad1 (v8) and your currentv9 disk on ad0...(the following code regretfully omits mountpoint specifics, uses synonyms...)

```
#ad1/bin# rsync blah blah blah (see bwlimit (forum search) for the full line) /dev/ad0/bin . 
#ad1/sbin# rsync ... ...................................................... /dev/ad0/sbin .
#ad1/var/# /bin/rm -rf db
#ad1/var/# mkdir db
#ad1/var/# !rsy ........................................................./dev/ad0/var/db .

cd /dev/ad1/usr
/bin/rm -rf local
mkdir local
cd local
#ad1/usr/local# rsync ....................................................... /dev/ad0/usr/local .
```
Unsure about those ad0,ad1s, they should be written as mountpoints. SORRY.  But only a few problems remained after a whole slew of rsyncs... like specific files in /etc, editing fstab, and other gotchas I do not recall.  But overall I preferred it to a v8 v9 upgrade on the target disk (as far as I recollect). PROBABLY because a whole slew of ports were automatically upgraded on the target machine (the /usr/local wipe and rsync)
ONE erroneous source-destination "cd" command might cripple your v9 though... ALSO I may have not-exact source-destination directories as they should be in the /var/db/ rsync above (not too practiced)...


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