Hi, just a quickie.

Our 'family server' is still on 11.4, which is now EOL'd. Is it possible
to jump straight to 13.0 using freebsd-update, or is it advisable to go
via 12.x?

TIA.

--
Mike Scott
Harlow, England

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On Wed, 12 Jan 2022 16:48:32 +0000, Mike Scott wrote:

Hi, just a quickie.

Our 'family server' is still on 11.4, which is now EOL'd. Is it possible
to jump straight to 13.0 using freebsd-update, or is it advisable to go
via 12.x?

TIA.

It's not usually recommended to jump more than major version at at time.
I've just upgrade my own systems, including the home server from 12.2 to 12.3 and it was painless. Jumping a major version requires a full ports/package upgrade too.

12.3 should probably have around 18 months of support still to go. It was
only released a month or so ago. 12.2 was out in Oct'20, so 12.4 likey won't be out till Spring 2023 and 12.3 support will run for 3 months after the release of 12.4. And then there's the old adage of never running a point
zero release of anything :-)

There are always changes and "gotchas" in a major version update too, so jumping two major versions at once will possibly double the pain.

On the other hand, if you want to jump to 13.0, it could be a good time
"clean the cruft" and just build a new install on clean disks. In place upgrade, trying out software by install ports/packages etc can leave stuff behind and/or leave deprecated config files and other stuff that could bite
you further down the line.

The fact you asked your question in the first
place tells me that you are more of a casual user like me than a "pro"
FreeBSD user, so I'd suggest either caution in upgrading, or start again
from scratch. I did that when my home server was upgraded from 9 to 11.
I did use another hard disk though, keeping the 9 install ready to plug
back in if things went pear-shaped :-)

Good luck, and read the release notes for changes and gotchas!

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On 12/01/2022 23:45, NoOne wrote:

On Wed, 12 Jan 2022 16:48:32 +0000, Mike Scott wrote:

Hi, just a quickie.

Our 'family server' is still on 11.4, which is now EOL'd. Is it possible
to jump straight to 13.0 using freebsd-update, or is it advisable to go
via 12.x?

TIA.

It's not usually recommended to jump more than major version at at time.
I've just upgrade my own systems, including the home server from 12.2 to 12.3 and it was painless. Jumping a major version requires a full ports/package upgrade too.

Yes; the handbook warns of this, thanks.
....

There are always changes and "gotchas" in a major version update too, so jumping two major versions at once will possibly double the pain.

Yes, I was really wondering if it was a technical possibility (IIRC Mint
needs to go through the intermediates; the update system won't even
offer a 'skip' option)

On the other hand, if you want to jump to 13.0, it could be a good time "clean the cruft" and just build a new install on clean disks. In place

That's really what I'm trying to avoid. I find the pain of odds and ends
(eg perl modules installed from CPAN) that get missed out can drag on a
long time - a lot of stuff is used once in a blue moon.

That said, I've been putting off this upgrade because there's a new pi4
on my desk with a raw 13.0 installed: it's intended as a replacement
machine, but finding space for downtime for my config is problematic.

upgrade, trying out software by install ports/packages etc can leave stuff behind and/or leave deprecated config files and other stuff that could bite you further down the line.

The fact you asked your question in the first
place tells me that you are more of a casual user like me than a "pro"

ex-pro :-} But sun4's were newish when I retired, and a 400M disk was
/huge/ :-}:-}
.....

Good luck, and read the release notes for changes and gotchas!

Thanks for the thoughts, especially the reminder about .0 releases. I've
run through the 'upgrade' part of freebsd-update aiming at 12.3, and
will have the machine to myself most of Saturday to do the install part.
We shall see.



--
Mike Scott
Harlow, England

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On 13/01/2022 14:52, Mike Scott wrote:

On 12/01/2022 23:45, NoOne wrote:

On Wed, 12 Jan 2022 16:48:32 +0000, Mike Scott wrote:

Hi, just a quickie.

Our 'family server' is still on 11.4, which is now EOL'd. Is it possible >>> to jump straight to 13.0 using freebsd-update, or is it advisable to go
via 12.x?

....

Thanks for the thoughts, especially the reminder about .0 releases. I've
run through the 'upgrade' part of freebsd-update aiming at 12.3, and
will have the machine to myself most of Saturday to do the install part.
We shall see.

One miserable failure later......

I tried to get to 12.3 using freebsd-update. Got a right old mess. The
upgrade /seemed/ to be working OK until I got to the bit about
re-installing packages. That gave a pile of messages along the lines of 'freebsd (null) has no installation candidates'. Not fixed by
incantations of 'pkg-static bootstrap' and the like. After much fixing
of the pkg system (ie rename the old db, and then do a bootstrap and
reinstall everything), I found lots of other things failing - it
transpired the GENERIC kernel hadn't upgraded: still at 11.x but with
12.x userland.

Not through luck, I had a complete set of current backups on spare
partitions, so with some work with a CD live system I'm back to square one.

But I have no idea what went wrong :-{


--
Mike Scott
Harlow, England

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On 13/01/2022 14:52, Mike Scott wrote:

Thanks for the thoughts, especially the reminder about .0
releases. I've run through the 'upgrade' part of freebsd-update
aiming at 12.3, and will have the machine to myself most of Saturday
to do the install part. We shall see.

Mike Scott <usenet.16@scottsonline.org.uk.invalid> followed up:

One miserable failure later......

I tried to get to 12.3 using freebsd-update. Got a right old mess. The upgrade /seemed/ to be working OK until I got to the bit about
re-installing packages. That gave a pile of messages along the lines
of 'freebsd (null) has no installation candidates'. Not fixed by
incantations of 'pkg-static bootstrap' and the like. After much fixing
of the pkg system (ie rename the old db, and then do a bootstrap and reinstall everything), I found lots of other things failing - it
transpired the GENERIC kernel hadn't upgraded: still at 11.x but with
12.x userland.

Not through luck, I had a complete set of current backups on spare partitions, so with some work with a CD live system I'm back to square one.

But I have no idea what went wrong :-{

You probably didn't make this mistake, but just in case ...

When doing freebsd-update upgrade -r {new-version}, it takes (IIRC) 3
reboots to do everything (but I think the last is to restart with the
upgraded pkg/port software). If you did too few, you could, indeed, be
in a state where userland and the kernel disagree. Read the console
messages as the system boots up to see what's running, or use dmesg (or
just read the log file).

After the second install, you should upgrade every package/port.
"pkg upgrade" should upgrade all your packages, but if it doesn't,
use "pkg upgrade -f".

If your own software suddenly develops problems, it may help to
recompile it, too.

HTH, but you probably didn't make that mistake,
-WBE

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I previously posted:

When doing freebsd-update upgrade -r {new-version}, it takes (IIRC) 3
reboots to do everything (but I think the last is to restart with the upgraded pkg/port software).

and by reboots, I mean "freebsd-update install" the first 2 reboots.
-WBE

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On 16/01/2022 09:38, Winston wrote:

I previously posted:

When doing freebsd-update upgrade -r {new-version}, it takes (IIRC) 3
reboots to do everything (but I think the last is to restart with the
upgraded pkg/port software).

and by reboots, I mean "freebsd-update install" the first 2 reboots.
-WBE

Thanks for the comments. I /think/ I followed the recipe in the
handbook, running f'bsd-update install and rebooting as directed. But as there's no record of exactly what I did, I suppose I may have got it
wrong. I'll try again when the m/c can be free.


--
Mike Scott
Harlow, England

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