Re: system updates

[Martin Husemann <martin%duskware.de@localhost>]

On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 08:46:34AM -0500, Will Senn wrote:
> Thanks for the explanation. So, I downloaded the USB installer for NetBSD
> 10.0 from the website. It's dated 3/28. I take it that this is the "formal
> release" (following https://www.netbsd.org/releases/release-map.html). When
> 10.1 comes out it will be on the "stable" or "maintenance branch" and
> 10.0.1, if it were to come out would be on the stable "security/critical"
> branch... As a new user, should I be tracking one of these branches and if
> so, how? The manual talks about upgrades, but that involves wholesale
> replacement of the filesets and not just updates... or am I reading it
> wrong.

For the full sets: yes, currently there are not incremental/patch binary
sets available.

For the stable branch: every major release has its own maintenance
branch, so netbsd-10 is what 10.0 came from and 10.1 will be from 
a late version of that branch.

Soon after a release we start to do pullups - so there already is a 
10.0_STABLE and it is available from the "daily" builds:

	https://nycdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/netbsd-10/latest/

This is usually very stable, but it is no formal release. So no extra manual
QA, no signed hashes, no guarantees (but we review pullup requests before
applying them).

The automatic test runs cover the stable branches too (but their main
focus, of course, is the ongoing developement branch, HEAD):

	https://releng.netbsd.org/test-results.html

Martin