On Wed, 14 Jun 2006 10:03:18 -0400
Greg Troxel <gdt@ir.bbn.com> wrote:

> 
> Thanks for all the comments.
> 
> I should have said: I'm talking about my notebook, which is running
> current from April.  I'm aware of netbsd-3, and run that (or netbsd-2
> still) on a number of production machines.  My project at BBN will be
> tracking current, so it's ok if this takes a bit of time but I'd
> prefer to avoid real trouble.
> 
> So my question was really: is -current in the mostly ok shape it
> usually is, or in one of those occasional bad states?  From the
> responses I got, it seems yes, it's in reasonable shape.

I fetched new sources today and built distribution and kernels for XEN0
and XENU without any problem.
System upgraded fine as well removing the old sendmail stuff.
I think you should be able to use it now without experiencing any
issues.

 
>   From: Daniel Carosone <dan@geek.com.au>
> 
>   Seems to be to me, and there are many useful fixes. Certainly, no
>   worse than -current ever is, and a lot better than it sometimes
>   (rarely) can be.
> 
> Thanks, and that's what Garrett said mostly.
> 
>   > I've been
>   > hesitant to upgrade due to the hearing about the switch to gcc4.
> 
>   This begs two questions:
> 
>    - upgrade from what as a starting point?  an earlier current from
>      (say) a few months ago, or from a 3.0-something?  if the former,
>      i'd say go ahead and swap a whole bunch of known fixed issues in
>      the past few months for the risk of new ones that you will always
>      get with -current, and faced the last time too.
> 
> From April current, so seems like I should go ahead.
> 
>    - what about the switch to gcc4 makes you hesitate?  The fact that
>      gcc4 might introduce or uncover additional problems (in which
> case, don't worry, because it's not yet the default), or the fact that
>      you may want to upgrade again very soon once the default is
>      changed, and you hesitate so as to wait and do the work only
> once?
> 
> I use a script that does full-auto merging of etc, so the work is only
> dealing with any problems
> (https://acert.ir.bbn.com/projects/etcmanage/).  With gcc4 not the
> default, I'm not worried.
> 
>   As an aside, my concern with switching to gcc4 relates more to the
>   possibility of random pkgsrc things breaking than to the base
> system; accordingly, I have so far only switched machines that don't
> use many pkgs to gcc4 - and have had no problems with those.  When I
> have some spare time I'll knock up another xen domU to test building
> all the pkgs I use elsewhere with gcc4, and see how many break.
> 
> That's a good point - my thinking was more diffuse, that upgrading the
> compiler was scary and that I didn't want this box on the profusely
> bleeding edge.
> 
> One person said offlist that a build with HAVE_GCC4 completed and the
> kernel crashed on boot.  I'm used to having to cvs up the next day and
> retry the build - my real concern was if a new build would succeed to
> make release but then work very badly.
> 
> -- 
>         Greg Troxel <gdt@ir.bbn.com>


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