How easy/hard are updates/upgrades?

[Seann Aswell]

> E.g. could I use a server to build the binaries and then sync them 
> with some embedded system (with a processor that probaby doesn't 
> support the latest SSE, AVX, ...)? 

Well, ping me in a week and I will know for sure. Currently migrating a 
few APU and Atom boxes from FreeBSD to DragonFly, and will be compiling 
on more powerful hardware.

However, my guess is that it won't matter. DragonFly currently only 
supports x86-64, and everything should be compiled regardless of whether 
the hardware uses it. If certain capabilities are not supported by the 
hardware, they won't be loaded or used by the kernel.

That is my guess, but will find out soon, and someone will chime in if I 
am leading you astray...


On 1/22/23 00:34, Christoph Harder wrote:
> Hello Seann, Hello Balázs,
>
> thank you for your fast feedback and the links.
>
> Having a separate non-critical machine for building and testing would 
> indeed make sense and avoid many potential problems.
> Is it important to build on the same hardware or will the build 
> process always produce the same results independent of the hardware it 
> is running?
> E.g. could I use a server to build the binaries and then sync them 
> with some embedded system (with a processor that probaby doesn't 
> support the latest SSE, AVX, ...)?
>
> Best regards,
> Christoph
>
>
> Am 22.01.2023 um 07:46 schrieb Seann Aswell:
>> I too have had 'freebsd-update fetch upgrade' result in issues, so 
>> while FreeBSD's binary update process is easy, it isn't bulletproof.
>>
>> I personally don't recall ever having an issue with DragonFly's 
>> source updating process, but keep in mind that compiling source is 
>> required, so on resource constrained systems it can take quite a while.
>>
>> Having been responsible for supporting various systems remotely in 
>> the past, your concern is completely understandable. Once you go thru 
>> the process a few times, you will gain confidence in updating 
>> remotely, as long as you have a backup snapshot of the OS and someone 
>> is onsite in case there are issues.
>>
>> FYI- A few resources about updating constrained systems:
>> https://marc.info/?l=dragonfly-users&m=149234716521744&w=2
>> https://umbriel.fr/blog/Upgrading_DragonFly_BSD_hosts_with_a_central_build_server.html 
>>
>>
>> The other advantage of updating from a central source is that you can 
>> test with a non-critical machine, and be pretty confident it will 
>> work on others.
>>
>>
>> On 1/21/23 12:30, Christoph Harder wrote:
>>> Hello everybody,
>>>
>>> maybe this question should be extended with "How bulletproof are 
>>> updates/upgrades?".
>>>
>>> I've used FreeBSD as OS for three VPN gateways, but keeping the 
>>> systems up to date was always a problem.
>>> Multiple times manual conflict resolution was required. Sometimes 
>>> remote access to the systems failed while/after an update, causing 
>>> downtimes and requiring me to go to the systems.
>>> Now this might not be a FreeBSD problem, I'm certainly no expert.
>>> Anyway, the result was, that I generally only did updates when I was 
>>> near the systems and did updates not as often as I would have liked.
>>> I did the updates by myself, since anytime a manual conflict 
>>> resolution would be required none of the other users could do it. 
>>> Ideally updates/upgrades would be so easy that anybody can do it or 
>>> that they can be automated.
>>>
>>> Now to the actual question. How easy/hard/bulletproof are 
>>> DragonflyBSD updates/upgrades?
>>>
>>> https://www.dragonflybsd.org/docs/handbook/Upgrading/ looks super 
>>> easy, but so did the update/upgrade manual of FreeBSD.
>>>
>>> Is the upgrade process on Dragonfly BSD easy enough that you could 
>>> describe the process to a (non-technical) user over the phone?
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> Christoph Harder
>>
>>
>>