
FreeBSD 12.2-BETA1 - vermaden
https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2020-September/092680.html
======
Mister_Snuggles
I really like FreeBSD, and I run it on my home server, but the whole update
process really needs a lot of work. The process described in this announcement
is accurate in my experience: Run freebsd-update twice, reboot, run freebsd-
update again, reinstall or rebuild applications, reboot again, run freebsd-
update yet again.

The upgrade process works well, but it's much more manual than it is in the
Linux world.

When PkgBase[0] becomes a thing, I hope that the process will be closer to the
Linux world.

The other thing that hurts the upgrade process is the lack of packaged
software. My big pain point is currently PostgreSQL 12+PostGIS 3.0. This
combination in FreeBSD isn't a thing, the packaged/ported PostGIS 3.0[1] is
for PostgreSQL 11. My solution has been to build PostgreSQL 12 from ports
(because the packaged version doesn't include XML support, which I also want)
then build PostGIS 3.0 from source, after installing all its dependencies from
packages. I have to rebuild PostGIS after most FreeBSD upgrades since it links
against now-changed libraries. If I were doing this in the OpenSuse world I
would just use the Applications:Geo repository[2] and be able to install the
right combination of software very easily.

Because of these issues, I'm slowly moving towards using FreeBSD to host VMs
running whatever OS/distribution is most appropriate for the job. Moving
PostgreSQL off of FreeBSD will greatly simplify my upgrade process.

[0] [https://wiki.freebsd.org/PkgBase](https://wiki.freebsd.org/PkgBase)

[1]
[https://www.freshports.org/databases/postgis30/](https://www.freshports.org/databases/postgis30/)

[2]
[https://build.opensuse.org/project/show/Application:Geo](https://build.opensuse.org/project/show/Application:Geo)

~~~
nix23
Why do you not use poudriere? And build automatically everything from ports
then install the build-ed packages on you machine's?

~~~
Mister_Snuggles
This is something I've been meaning to look into, but it still doesn't change
the postgis30/postgresql11-server dependency in the current ports tree.

I'm sure I could work around it, but then I start to ask myself whether I'd
rather do FreeBSD software administration or create an OpenSuse VM, install
the packaged software (which is already the right version and already has the
right config options), and work on my GIS project.

~~~
nix23
>but it still doesn't change the postgis30/postgresql11-server dependency in
the current ports tree

If you tell make.conf that postgres12 is the default it will compile postgis
for that version, same with php/ruby/mysql and so on.

------
i_miss_unix
Really looking forward to tinkering with this. Is it me, or does it seem that
the BSDs are really losing more and more mind share as time marches on? I have
very few issues with FreeBSD or OpenBSD beyond the occasional incompatibility,
and it's always something minor like suspend or sound that can fixed with a
few queries.

~~~
remexre
I started using FreeBSD on a VPS a couple months ago, and I've moved my home
router to be FreeBSD -- PF is /so much better/ than anything else wrt
understandability, and putting miscellaneous services the router runs in jails
is pretty nice, and feels simpler to set up "right" than the same with Docker
(e.g. no messing around with Docker volumes, only to discover you've
accidentally deleted years of family photos).

~~~
mceachen
> you've accidentally deleted years of family photos

Oof, that hurts.

I'm going to add a check right now to PhotoStructure to assert that people's
library is not stored within the container to prevent this from happening to
my users.

------
erk__
You can see the schedule for the release on this page:
[https://www.freebsd.org/releases/12.2R/schedule.html](https://www.freebsd.org/releases/12.2R/schedule.html)

------
wazoox
Does mount_smbfs support SMB2 at last?

~~~
nix23
Yes with the latest Sambaserver you have everything Linux has.

------
codetrotter
As someone who has been using FreeBSD for a long time on various machines of
mine, both physical machines in my home and VMs in the cloud, I'm wondering
how many people (both in absolute numbers and in percentages) run the beta
releases on their hardware.

My general impression, which stems mostly from the description I once read on
the FreeBSD downloads page and from elsewhere is that if you want to help find
bugs in upcoming releases you run the CURRENT branch and else you run RELEASE.
But I expect that there are people running the beta releases as well who make
meaningful bug reports that result in fixes prior to release versions being
minted – otherwise I think they would not be making beta releases still.

I did used to run CURRENT for a while, but eventually found out that
personally I wasn't making any particularly helpful bug reports based on it
anyways so I went back to RELEASE.

For the VM server that I have been using for many years now for sending and
receiving mail, as well as to host some websites of mine, running FreeBSD
RELEASE has been working great for years.

Meanwhile, my desktop computer which is currently running FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE
is having issues where it freezes and requires a hard reboot. But I had this
same kind of issue when I was running various Linux distros on this same
desktop computer over the past years. I am suspecting that either it is a
cause of hardware malfunction or possibly of the Nvidia driver for the
graphics card, but I don't really have any way of finding out what the actual
problem is. Not the least because of the fact that it will often run for a
week of being powered on perfectly fine (both with FreeBSD and Linux distros)
until suddenly it just completely freezes. Doesn't react to mouse, doesn't
react to keyboard, doesn't respond to ping.

The fact that my desktop computer can run fine for about a week at a time
makes it hard to figure out what the actual problem is. Say that I were to
pull the graphics card out for example, and it ran fine for two weeks. How do
I know at that point that I can really blame the graphics card and it wasn't
just random chance that made it run for longer than usual this time around?

I think in order to isolate the problem I would have to build like 8 different
physical machines all with the same hardware, and then say ok four of the
machines I will initially run like I do with my current desktop, and four of
them I will pull the graphics card out of and then have them running 24x7 for
a month or until at least two of the machines with Nvidia graphics cards
crashed if sooner. At that point I might conclusively say there is strong
evidence of problems with the Nvidia graphics cards or with the drivers for
said cards.

But if the machines without the Nvidia graphics cards were also crashing then
I'd need to swap out for example all of the motherboards and I'd run the
experiment for another week. An so on.

On the flip-side, if all of them ran fine for a month with the initial
configuration I would conclude that probably some of the hardware in my
current machine is just broken, and that there is no bigger issue at play. But
all of that would cost not just a lot of time but also a lot of money. And as-
is the next thing I can afford to buy is certainly not such an amount of
hardware – the next thing I am going to buy when I can afford it is rather a
couple of new hard-drives, as the spinning disks that hold most of my data are
getting a few years old and I am getting quite nervous about them suddenly
going to fail me. I've had hard-disks fail on me in the past. In particular I
used to have a machine with 4x 2TB hard-drives in it to provide me with ZFS
storage, and then I moved houses and I accidentally dropped my computer from
about 1 meter height and last time I tried to see if the drives were working
none of them showed up neither after boot nor in BIOS, neither in the original
computer that I had dropped nor in the desktop computer that I have now. Well
anyways it don't matter too much, none of the data was that important really.
And I think said drives were making unusual noises also but I don't quite
remember as it was a while ago now. But that kind of experience, along with
having had some external hard-drives fail me in the past, does feed into the
worry that I have for my current hard-drive as it is getting a few years old
now.

But back to what I was saying about trying to debug the issue with my desktop.
In theory I could disconnect basically all but the RAM and the CPU from the
motherboard (well, and but the fans of course :P) and boot a minimal kernel
from a USB stick and have it run in RAM and let it stay powered on for four
weeks and see if it crashed, and then if it doesn't to connect the SSD and the
HDD to it and run it for another four weeks and see if it crashes, and then to
run the regular RELEASE kernel on it for four weeks and see what happens, and
after that with the graphics card connected and see what happens for the next
four weeks. But all of those weeks man. I just want my desktop to work, I
don't want to spend weeks with it running on its own without being available
for my use.

Anyways, that brings me to something else related to the testing that people
do and that is the fact that I find it kind of hard to know what hardware to
pick for a FreeBSD desktop. There's things like
[https://www.freebsd.org/releases/12.1R/hardware.html](https://www.freebsd.org/releases/12.1R/hardware.html)
and [https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics](https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics) and
[https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics/AMD-GPU-
Matrix](https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics/AMD-GPU-Matrix) but they all seem
kind of out of date.

If I had the money to buy the hardware for it and to pay the electric bills
for it I would gladly be running a bunch of machines in different
configurations of current consumer hardware and making notes and filing bug
reports and hardware compatibility reports to help other users of FreeBSD and
Linux. Maybe someday. Until that day I'll just have to accept that every week
or so I might have to hit that hard reset button on my desktop, inconvenient
as it might be.

~~~
nix23
>Until that day I'll just have to accept that every week or so I might have to
hit that hard reset button on my desktop

That really must be your Hardware, i have FB12.1-REL and it's rockstable on 5
different Machines from 10yo to 1 two laptops and three Workstations.

And many many VM's and two really big physical servers

~~~
codetrotter
A few thoughts that I have about my hardware are:

\- I wonder how many other people use Nvidia graphics cards on FreeBSD and on
Linux.

\- A few years ago I used to mine crypto on my graphics card. I made like $20
from it, so if the graphics card is physically in bad shape and this is what
caused it then gg on my part for ruining a ~$390 graphics card in order to
make about $20.

\- The PSU is probably the oldest component in my computer. In fact I think
the store I bought it from has been shut down for many years even; that's how
old that PSU is. Could it be supplying my computer with bad quality power?
Maybe.

\- My RAM is of the non-ECC variant. Could cosmic rays be to blame for the
crashes? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ The BOFH would certainly have said that this was the
reason, but even in the real world it could be maybe?

~~~
nix23
> Nvidia graphics cards on FreeBSD

Many it's official supported

>A few years ago I used to mine crypto on my graphics card

Mining does not damage your card

>My RAM is of the non-ECC variant.

Make a extensive memory check like memcheck+

>The PSU is probably the oldest component in my computer.

Here i would bet is your problem, if the ram is ok, no CAP has a bubble and
your computer is dust free then it's to 80% your PSU

~~~
simlevesque
> no CAP has a bubble

could you please tell me what that means ? I googled "CAP bubble computer" and
the results were unrelated.

~~~
codetrotter
They were referring to if there was any bulging on any of the capacitors on
any of the components in the computer.

~~~
simlevesque
ah thanks I wasn't sure what CAP meant now it's all clear.

------
nimbius
heres hoping we get ASLR in this release? :)

~~~
nix23
Well they have ASR, if you want ASLR and much more you probably want to use

[https://hardenedbsd.org/content/easy-feature-
comparison](https://hardenedbsd.org/content/easy-feature-comparison)

