# Rolling Release FreeBSD



## Hortimer (Apr 22, 2016)

Greetings folks !
I want to have a rolling release system, but i do not want to recompile software every time, so i want to ask to you if installing STABLE/CURRENT version, i will get quickly last binary packages updates. I am asking to you this, because i read that packages are automatically updated every two weeks, but i'd prefer to have a confirmation from you .


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## zirias@ (Apr 22, 2016)

ports/packages are the same for all FreeBSD versions (and such, independent from releases), so, basically, IFF I understand your question correctly, the answer is yes. Of course, following either STABLE or CURRENT, for the base system to be "up to date", you WILL have to rebuild world and kernel now and then.


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## Hortimer (Apr 22, 2016)

Zirias said:


> ports/packages are the same for all FreeBSD versions (and such, independent from releases), so, basically, IFF I understand your question correctly, the answer is yes. Of course, following either STABLE or CURRENT, for the base system to be "up to date", you WILL have to rebuild world and kernel now and then.


Sorry, but i think i didn't understand. Ports are "up to date" costantly, and i know this, but pre-build packages? I'm interested to them.
On another thread, i read that the packages(binaries) tree is updated every 2 weeks


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## tobik@ (Apr 22, 2016)

Hortimer said:


> Sorry, but i think i didn't understand. Ports are "up to date" costantly, and i know this, but pre-build packages? I'm interested to them.
> On another thread, i read that the packages(binaries) tree is updated every 2 weeks


Ports live in /usr/ports and are the recipes from which packages are built which you can install with `pkg`. Packages are rebuilt approx. every 3-4 days or so. If you want the packages that are most up-to-date you need to switch to the latest repository by creating /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf with:

```
FreeBSD: { url: "pkg+http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/${ABI}/latest" }
```
 I recommend that you use 10.3-RELEASE for this. It'll be supported until April 2018 and will receive updates until then.

That should work with 10-STABLE or 11-CURRENT snapshots too, however there are no binary upgrades for the base system for both of these.


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## Hortimer (Apr 22, 2016)

tobik said:


> Ports live in /usr/ports and are the recipes from which packages are built which you can install with `pkg`. Packages are rebuilt approx. every 3-4 days or so. If you want the packages that are most up-to-date you need to switch to the latest repository by creating /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf with:
> 
> ```
> FreeBSD: { url: "pkg+http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/${ABI}/latest" }
> ...


Thank you . Just a last question that's a lot OT. What's the situation of FreeBSD about mantainers? Unluckly it's not a popular system, so i guess there's not as many mantainers as there are for example on Linux Mint. So...could you show me your point of view?(if it's well mantained or not for example)

P.S could you share the link where is reported the method you made me see?


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## drhowarddrfine (Apr 22, 2016)

Hortimer said:


> So...could you show me your point of view?(if it's well mantained or not for example)


That would be a good question for heavy users, like Netflix who serve all their video content with FreeBSD and contribute to FreeBSD core. Or Whatsapp which uses FreeBSD. Or Juniper Networks. Or Yahoo which still consists of 25% FreeBSD servers. Or Sony. Or ...

These companies don't seem to have a concern with the maintenance of FreeBSD.


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## tobik@ (Apr 22, 2016)

Hortimer said:


> P.S could you share the link where is reported the method you made me see?


It was in the release notes for 10.2-RELEASE (https://www.freebsd.org/releases/10.2R/relnotes.html#ports):


> 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)


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## Hortimer (Apr 22, 2016)

tobik said:


> It was in the release notes for 10.2-RELEASE (https://www.freebsd.org/releases/10.2R/relnotes.html#ports):


But...how do you know that mirror?


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## tobik@ (Apr 22, 2016)

Hortimer said:


> But...how do you know that mirror?


It's in /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf. I'm sure this stuff is written down somewhere else too. I know there's a forum thread about this as well.


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## ANOKNUSA (Apr 23, 2016)

Hortimer said:


> ...guess there's not as many mantainers as there are for example on Linux Mint. So...could you show me your point of view?(if it's well mantained or not for example)



Mint may have more maintainers, but because of the way distro development is done, I'd be willing to bet that despite many Linux distros having more manpower they are much more tedious and difficult to maintain than the *BSDs. Which is almost certainly why 999,999,990 of the one million Linux distributions are just derivatives of the ten that actually matter, and some of those ten--e.g. Arch and Gentoo---place almost all responsibility for maintenance/stability on the end-user.

The best guides I've seen explaining the differences for *BSD newcomers are BSD for Linux users---which is out-of-date, but still somewhat useful; and the OpenBSD FAQ, which briefly explains how OpenBSD (like other *BSDs) is different from what Linux users are used to. The short answer is that FreeBSD is an _operating system_, distinct from the applications you install on top of it. That's why Zirias answered in that way. If you want rolling-release _FreeBSD_, you track FreeBSD-STABLE or FreeBSD-CURRENT. If you want rolling-release ports/packages, you use the "latest" repository or build ports. This is different from Linux, where everything is rolling-release or nothing is because everything is a package.


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