FreeBSD 2023 - What's new FreeBSD.15-CURRENT?

#FreeBSD #OpenSource #Unix #garyhtech #2023

Let's have a quick look at FreeBSD 15 and see what's new!

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[mrmfloy]

4:00 - FYI, supporting 32-bit has not much to do with old or new hardware. It is just overhead involved in maintaining 2 architectures. I am happily using my 32-bit laptop to read papers in the morning. Please don't kill that joy.

[mirror]

The leap from a late 13 to a new 15 instead of going through 14 first isnt much right now as 14 (now -stable) was just branched off of -current (now 15 code) so recently. Given a choice, I usually would have done upgrade to a version, another pass to make sure its as up to date/patched as I could (usually unnecessary), then upgrade to next sequential version, and repeat. The 'proper' step is following the documentation instead of what I said; reading /usr/src/UPDATING, and for -current the mailing list, is more important than reading my comment. In the "unlikely" event of a problem 1. please report it so it can get documented if an issue is present and 2. you did have a backup right?
No need to separate buildworld and buildkernel with two separate make commands and the third command of installkernel can be added on too; if you want/need to specify different make parameters to each then you may want them separated, such as -j#. Last I checked, there are bugs with multiple make jobs, having /usr/src call building kernel modules in /usr/ports, and having a configuration dialog come up which happens on first build of any configurable ports or if available options have new additions; preemptively answering the dialogs, -j1 during buildkernel, or building the ports as a separete step should work around that . I use prewritten shell scripts to do backups, download new source, build, install, and build new dependencies so I don't have to type as much
If the machines are connected on a network, you 'could' remote into one from the other to avoid multiple keyboard issues though you may find that rebooting to single user + doing that is an issue.
32bit support being dropped will not mean you cannot build for that platform while it is tier 2 or 3 supported and patches will still be accepted but keeping it working is not a primary focus of the FreeBSD development team. They aren't against 32bit support but it takes time and effort to keep something working that they generally do not use and/or have access to; its been stated that issues have arisen where 32bit wasn't working properly for its users because of differences between 32bit and when the devs ran 32bit under a 64 bit system and the devs were often working with the latter for what support they did provide in recent years.
RELNOTES would be easier to follow if there were dates associated when updating the system though if its just a jumbled list of 'we should tell people about these things in announcements later' then maybe it doesn't matter as much. Who wants to open the bug report about the v14 listing at its top on current? I'd suspect it would be worth getting a comment in the other file to make sure all related files such as this receive the new version or to consider removing them.
Your 'no operating system found' step was an issue with upgrading the ZFS pool rather than upgrading FreeBSD (which brought the newer ZFS where this whole mess 'could' happen). As you said, you needed to update your boot loader before the pool upgrade so that it can be compatible with the pool's updated features. You should always consider that when running a pool upgrade and similarly when sharing pools between systems if either plans to boot form the pool. I still consider it a bug that FreeBSD does not cover it clearly in /usr/ports/UPDATING (edit: there is mention of it there, but I find that documentation is still buggy when reading it), at least pointing users to proper bootloader upgrade documentation even if it is not required 'right now' as part of the FreeBSD upgrade. I also included that (easy) step on MBR booting but feel lost about properly understanding UEFI booting. If I follow correctly, the bootloader could be upgraded like the kernel is where you can have your older still present instead of replaced by the newer. Boot environments also will not fix a pool/boot loader upgrade issue; `zpool checkpoint` is designed for having an ability to mark a pool's current state to take the entire pool back to including undoing otherwise permanent upgrades and its use could be easily integrated into an upgrade script but once you are happy that a pool is accessible+reliable then you will want to remove such a checkpoint as it isn't designed to play nice with other features like reserved space and such. My understanding is the block clone feature that you now have enabled lead to data corruption under certain cases; a checkpoint would be how you get pool back to a good state other than restoring from backup. You may need sysctl option to actually enable using that feature unless it has had the bugs worked out; I haven't followed it as close but its introduction is only one of the pains that happened at the right time to delay 14 from being created and released.
Unless there are bugs in such system, you can build your own FreeBSD install media from a working FreeBSD system + /usr/src and can use that to perform both an install and a repair as desired.

[chrisbannister]

Is there a previous video to this one? "The first thing we're going to do ..." seems to have missed a few steps.

[tux]

It's probably too early to do anything other than FreeBSD system developement with 15 right now. The reason there are no packages is the ABI as of now could very well be totally incompatible with the ABI when getting closer to alpha. You could try using 15 as a NFS server or iSCSI target. I believe both of these are in the base system. You could also try out bhyve. Over the last six months in my home lab, I've switched all my Debian systems (server & desktop) over to FreeBSD. It really is a much better OS overall for my uses and needs. I'll probably start taking the plunge to upgrade to 14 once it hits RC2.

[lingux_yt]

we didn't get anywhere, but cool video 😂

[godnyx]

Hello Gary! I would like to ask you if you have tried to install Wayland+GDM+Gnome on FreeBSD and were successful on this?

I did tried on FreeBSD 14 Beta yesterday and I wasn't able to make it work (of course I've read the Handbook).

[lingux_yt]

I tried Free BSD 13 Xfce. it's great but I took too long configuring sound and disk mounting. I wish it were simpler

[Knirin]

Embedded platforms are far more likely to be 32 bit only.

[Felix-vehs]

No 32 bit probably means no 1st gen Raspberry Pi with FreeBSD 15 😅

[TheKetsa]

yeah, in short : FreeBSD still feels like the nineties. Best for the nostalgic or vintage lovers.

[dragos-andreirotaru]

I see you using Windows, I unsubscribe