Will Senn <will.s...@gmail.com> writes: > 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.
One of the best things about NetBSD is how easy it is to do a full build. I keep a full checkout of src and xsrc on the netbsd-10 branch and build it, using build.sh but with... the BUILD-NetBSD wrapper in etcmanage. You can also download these builds, but I often want some little change for myself. I have been doing this for years, and the netbsd-N branches have been extremely stable. I cannot recall a failure to work if they build to completion and dimly remeber 1 or 2 build failures over about 20 years. (Building -current is much riskier!) My update process is just to unapck the sets over the running system. Except etc and xetc, I unpack to /usr/netbsd-etc and then merge them to the real etc carefully. That and a reboot is all it takes.
