Re: FreeBSD 12.2 can not be upgraded

On 5 September 2022 3:05:03 am AEST, Doug Denault <doug@safeport.com> wrote:
 > There was a long thread on this. My observations and questions are
 > more 
 > about how to update production systems. My long standing update path
 > is to 
 > update my FreeBSD workstations. If that goes okay we some servers on
 > out 
 > LAN that we update next.
 > 
 > I ran `freebsd-update -r 12.3-RELEASE upgrade` which converted my
 > laptop 
 > essentially into a paperweight by the introduction a bad copy of 
 > ld-elf.so.1. The system would boot, but most useful commands (think
 > cp) 
 > exited with an error. This is all documented via google with no
 > successful 
 > work arounds that I could fine. What you can not do is
 > `freebsd-update 
 > rollback`. I though I could maybe fix this by going to single user
 > and 
 > overwriting ld-elf.so.1. This can not be done as all commands depend
 > on 
 > this file.
 > 
 > I created image files from:
 > 
 >    FreeBSD-12.3-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1.iso (4+GB)
 >    FreeBSD-12.3-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img ~1GB
 > 
 > Neither of these images are self contained. Both install 12.3
 > correctly but 
 > by downloading the OS from a mirror site of your choosing.

No Doug, I installed 12.3-R from the dvd1 image, deliberately without any network connection.  The install itself went fine, including the source and ports tree at that time.

 > Is there a path 
 > thought the dvd1 install that does something with the extra 3GB of
 > data?

Sadly, the 2.6GB of packages is initially inaccessible, firstly due to a broken symlink on the image, and subsequently due to needing three patches to bsdconfig.  I have got it working but need to run another install to verify; that's another story.

 > Does the dvd1.iso image have to be burned to a DVD?

No, as advertised on the release announcement page, the image can be simply dd'd to a USB memstick.

https://www.freebsd.org/releases/12.3R/announce/

The "livefs" mode works fine, maybe you can sort out your broken bits having booted into that and then mounting your disk/s?

 > My am not sure what is the philosophy of deleting the supporting
 > files so 
 > quickly. Other than making a system from backup is there a way to
 > install 
 > an older version?

Not sure what you mean.  I don't think older installation images are missing, are they?  There's been discussion on forums about EOL package repositories being deleted, due to insufficient diskspace maybe?

 > And lastly does 12.2 --> 13.x work?

Haven't tried.  12.4 is coming and I'm hoping to help get the broken dvd1 packages installation fixed by then.

 > If intent if all this is to protect me from myself, what protects me
 > from 
 > the developers? There is certainly no Joy in this.

I understand frustration ... I can say that clearly nobody tested trying to install the 12.3-R dvd1 packages using bsdconfig with no network.

cheers, Ian