RELENG_5 vs. RELENG_5_3

[Nikolas Britton]

Adam wrote:

>So if I cvsup with RELENG_5, and I'm currently running version 5.3, will I'll be getting the new code that will eventually become FreeBSD 5.4?
>
>If I update with RELENG_5_3, and I'm currently running version 5.3, will I just get critical updates and security fixes for FreeBSD 5.3?
>
>Thanks
>
>  
>

Yes, everything you said is correct.

If you cvsup with RELENG_6 you will be tracking -CURRENT (aka HEAD), 
NEVER! a good idea for a newbie.

If you cvsup with RELENG_5 you will be tracking -STABLE, -STABLE does 
NOT imply the code is "Stable", only that there won't be radical changes 
to the code, that is what -CURRENT is for, I would not recommend 
tracking this for 5.x until it matures a bit more, maybe after 5.4 or 
5.5-RELEASE and even after it stabilizes tracking -STABLE is not 
recommend for "production systems", Think of it as "Beta" software.

If you cvsup with RELENG_5_3 you will be tracking the -RELEASE branch 
for that -RELEASE, this will get you critical and security updates, this 
is what you want. Also some -RELEASE branches are designated as errata 
fix branches. Then when 5.4 is released you would change it to 
RELENG_5_4 and cvsup to 5.4.

See here for more about Release Engineering: 
http://www.freebsd.org/releng/index.html