On Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:41:31 +0100, Peter Kay - Syllopsium wrote Trying to make sure attribution is clear, bear with this edit:
I'd mentioned, in regards to -release: > >> Upgrading by compiling source is unsupported. Edd had responded: > > I don't see why that wouldn't work, just so long as you sysmerge. Peter wrote: > Actually, the issue isn't whether it would work, or whether it's > supported. The real question is : Why bother? It may be moot, but in this case, a simple build won't work. 4.3->4.4 by source requires yacc, libc, libm, libiberty, and gcc to be manually rebuilt before building the system. In addition, jumping on the source-upgrade wagon with the OPENBSD_x_y_BASE tag requires patience. The BASE source is not guaranteed to be finalized until the CD images have been cut, tested, shipped, and pre-release orders are announced. It doesn't always happen, but in this case, 4_4_BASE had some changes after initial tagging. And lastly, and most importantly, 4.4-release is unsupported. It will not be supported until the day it is publicly released. If you install it prior to release date, which I expect will be on or about November 1, you are running an unsupported OS. That's whether you build it yourself or install it from a pre-order CD. The project won't accept PRs, won't publish patches, won't submit fixes for -stable. Every -release cycle, I see people their pre-ordered -release systems into production prior to release by the Project. > Compiling by source is vastly slower and more involved than whacking > the install cd/disk/netboot in and telling the system to upgrade. Absolutely! > The time to compile source is when it brings a tangible benefit. In > this case, it doesn't. I've been building -releases early, but only because I want to have my LiveCDs available on the same day the Project announces the -release. One needs to be able to follow -current to be able to build -release from source; and I must say, all of my systems other than the build systems for LiveCDs run -current, which is well past 4.4-release.
