Re: How to upgrade an EOL FreeBSD release or how to make it working again

NetBSD runs on almost everything up to a Dyson vacuum…take a look, there is
an ARM flavor supported there. It will feel familiar, I expect. But to an
earlier poster's point, that is pretty old hardware. I bow to no one in my
enthusiasm for keeping obsolete hardware running, but a chromebook might be
too little reward for the effort needed.

On Mon, Jan 15, 2024 at 2:06 PM Mario Marietto <marietto2008@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hello Paul,
>
> Do you know for sure if I can install NetBSD on my Google / Samsung / Arm
> / Chromebook ?
>
> On Mon, Jan 15, 2024 at 10:38 PM Mario Marietto <marietto2008@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> What is NetBSD for ?
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 15, 2024 at 9:53 PM paul beard <paulbeard@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> This is usually where someone asks if OP has heard of NetBSD.
>>>
>>> https://www.netbsd.org
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jan 15, 2024 at 10:16 AM David Chisnall <theraven@freebsd.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 15 Jan 2024, at 16:46, Mario Marietto <marietto2008@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > The ARM Chromebook is based on armv7,it is still recent.
>>>>
>>>> For reference, the ARMv7 architecture was introduced in 2005.  The last
>>>> cores that implemented the architecture were released in 2014.  This is not
>>>> a ‘recent’ architecture, it’s one that’s 19 years old and has been largely
>>>> dead for several years.
>>>>
>>>> > But let's change perspective for a moment,don't think about the ARM
>>>> Chromebook. My question is : how to upgrade FreeBSD when it goes EOL.
>>>>
>>>> Generally, run `freebsd-update`.  This is a very different question
>>>> from ‘how do I do a new install of an old an unsupported version?'
>>>>
>>>> > I ask this because there is a huge difference here between FreeBSD
>>>> and Linux. Today if you need to use , for example Ubuntu 14.0, you can use
>>>> it as is. Yes,there will be a lot of bugs,but it will work without
>>>> crashes.  But if you want to use an old FreeBSD system,nothing will work
>>>> for you. So,do you know some methods to install even packages or ports ?
>>>> You know,there are cases when you need to do some experiments so that you
>>>> can keep your machine off the internet,so you aren't scared that someone
>>>> can compromise it. Totally prohibiting the users to use an old
>>>> system,removing ports and packages is not a choice that I approve of. And
>>>> I'm not the only one that thinks like this.
>>>>
>>>> If you want to use an old and unsupported version of FreeBSD, no one is
>>>> stopping you, but:
>>>>
>>>>  - You will need to build the releases.  The source code is still in
>>>> git, you can.  The scripts for building the release images are right there
>>>> in the repo.  Just grab the relevant release or releng branch and go.
>>>>
>>>>  - You will need to build packages.  Newer versions of the ports tree
>>>> will not be tested with the older release, so you may need to use an older
>>>> checkout of the ports tree.  Poudriere will build a package repo for you.
>>>>
>>>> In both cases, if you’re using older versions you almost certainly
>>>> *will* have security vulnerabilities.  The project strongly advises you not
>>>> to do this and not to blame us when you install known-insecure software and
>>>> end up compromised.
>>>>
>>>> The project does not have enough active contributors to keep
>>>> maintaining things indefinitely.  This is why release have a five-year
>>>> supported lifetime.  If you want to pick up an old branch and maintain it,
>>>> you’re welcome to.  In the past, companies have picked up old branches and
>>>> maintained them for customers that had a dependency on them.  If you want
>>>> to pay someone to maintain an old branch (and have deep pockets) then there
>>>> are probably a few companies that will happily take your money.
>>>>
>>>> Maintaining binaries is a slightly different issue, but it’s not
>>>> totally unrelated.  Keeping old packages around consumes disk space and
>>>> costs the project money (remember, every package is mirrored across the
>>>> CDN, so this isn’t just a single disk).  Even if it were free,
>>>> philosophically, I think making it easy for users to install known-insecure
>>>> software is a bad idea but if you want to keep a package repo with
>>>> out-of-date packages online indefinitely then you can.  You can run
>>>> Poudriere and even cross-compile from a fairly beefy cloud machine quite
>>>> easily.
>>>>
>>>> It’s been a while since I did a full package build, but I would guess
>>>> that you could do a single package build (all ports) for about $50 on a
>>>> cloud VM, more (2-3x) if it’s emulated.  Storing the results for a small
>>>> number of users will cost around $10-20/month.  If you think this is an
>>>> important thing to do, then you are absolutely welcome to spend your own
>>>> money on doing it.
>>>>
>>>> David
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Paul Beard / www.paulbeard.org/
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Mario.
>>
>
>
> --
> Mario.
>


-- 
Paul Beard / www.paulbeard.org/