Bug 62484

Comment 1 Jens Schweikhardt 2004-02-07 17:25:28 UTC

Responsible Changed
From-To: freebsd-doc->dougb

Over to mergemaster maintainer.

Comment 2 Marc Fonvieille 2004-02-07 17:31:54 UTC

On Sat, Feb 07, 2004 at 11:58:40AM -0500, Lowell Gilbert wrote:
> >Description:
> 	
> 
> The -p option for mergemaster is described as the
> "pre-buildworld" option, but we actually advise using it
> immediately before installworld.  Either one will work fine
> as far as I can recall, but the difference has confused at
> least one person on comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc.
> 
> >How-To-Repeat:
> 	
> >Fix:
> 
> 	
> 
> The easiest tweak would be to move the "mergemaster -p" to
> immediately before the buildworld in the Handbook's
> "Canonical Way to Update Your System".

To be simple: the -p option is seen as a pre-installworld option, when
a special file/thing is needed to buildworld, it is mentionned in
/usr/src/UPDATING (by the way, the same commands order is given in this
file).  We can also add that is safiest to do the "mergemaster -p" after
the reboot in case of a bad kernel etc.

In the Handbook we give a "general procedure", this procedure will
be ok in 99.99% of cases, it's why the reader should read the rest of
the chapter :)

Marc

Marc Fonvieille <blackend@FreeBSD.org> writes:

> On Sat, Feb 07, 2004 at 11:58:40AM -0500, Lowell Gilbert wrote:
> > >Description:
> > 	
> > 
> > The -p option for mergemaster is described as the
> > "pre-buildworld" option, but we actually advise using it
> > immediately before installworld.  Either one will work fine
> > as far as I can recall, but the difference has confused at
> > least one person on comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc.
> > 
> > >How-To-Repeat:
> > 	
> > >Fix:
> > 
> > 	
> > 
> > The easiest tweak would be to move the "mergemaster -p" to
> > immediately before the buildworld in the Handbook's
> > "Canonical Way to Update Your System".
> 
> To be simple: the -p option is seen as a pre-installworld option, when
> a special file/thing is needed to buildworld, it is mentionned in
> /usr/src/UPDATING (by the way, the same commands order is given in this
> file).  We can also add that is safiest to do the "mergemaster -p" after
> the reboot in case of a bad kernel etc.

Okay, then the appropriate tweak would be to change the manual and the
program itself for mergemaster, which both refer to "-p" as
"pre-buildworld".

    [1003] (be-well) lowell> mergemaster -h |grep buildworld
      -p  Pre-buildworld mode, only compares crucial files
    [1004] (be-well) lowell> man mergemaster | grep buildworld
         -p          Pre-buildworld mode.  Compares only files known to be essen-
    [1005] (be-well) lowell> 

> In the Handbook we give a "general procedure", this procedure will
> be ok in 99.99% of cases, it's why the reader should read the rest of
> the chapter :)

I'm not sure what your quote marks are for.  The Handbook *says* that
the procedure is "canonical," which is a fairly strong statement.
Should the handbook section title be changed to say "general" or
"typical"?  And 99.99% of the time "mergemaster -p" isn't needed at
*all*, but I don't think that's an argument for taking it out of the
Handbook. :-)

Comment 4 Doug Barton 2004-02-08 06:19:48 UTC

State Changed
From-To: open->closed


Thanks for your submission, but I think the man page is 
clear here. It's actually more useful to run -p before 
buildworld as it also gives you a chance to check your 
make.conf variables (if any exist).