Re: I am sick and tired of the poor quality of documentation on FreeBSD

From: Steve O'Hara-Smith <steve_at_sohara.org>
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2023 20:30:38 UTC 
On Tue, 21 Nov 2023 20:51:01 +0100 (CET)
iio7@tutanota.com wrote:

> Take a look at how it's done on OpenBSD! Take a look at have it's done on
> Arch Linux!
> 
> When there is something that is going to break something during an
> upgrade, you get timely information and a step by step instruction in
> what to do - BEFORE you do it!

	You did of course read the release notes right ? The rather good
documentation provided by the FreeBSD project for each new release.
Specifically this section that tells you exactly what to do and why.

https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/relnotes/#upgrade

	Documentation is only useful if you read it! BEFORE you do things.

> Something like this doesn't help!
>   Pool 'zroot' has the bootfs property set, you might need to update the
> boot code. See gptzfsboot(8) and loader.efi(8) for details.

	It's a warning not documentation, heeding it could have saved you
much trouble.

> I might need to update the boot code!? WTF does that even mean?

	It seems pretty clear that you should make sure you understand it
and do what is necessary *before* you reboot. The boot code is (as the name
implies) the code used to boot the system which has to be able to read the
filesystem containing the OS, which it can't if that filesystem has been
updated with features that the existing boot code does not support.

>  I never touched any boot code during installation so I don't even know
> what that is! And reading those man pages did NOT help me in any way.

	If you had read the release notes you would know what to do, and
surely the name "boot code" is sufficiently descriptive as to what it is.

> So now I got a box that's borked with this beautiful message after
> updating the zroot pool:

	AND rebooting without updating the boot code right ?

> ZFS: unsupported feature: com.delphix:head_errlog
> ZFS: pool zroot is not supported
> Can't find /boot/zfsloader
> Can't find /boot/loader
> Can't find /boot/kernel/kernel

	Now you're going to need this article in the forums which a search
would have found for you in a few seconds:

<https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/upgrade-14-relase-root-on-zfs-reboot-before-update-boot-code-and-stuck-at-efi-shell.91035/>

	You might want to thank T-Aoki and note the rather more polite way
someone else who got themselves into this mess asked for help.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith <steve@sohara.org>