Tracking freebsd current

blog/2019-01-29-tracking-freebsd-current.markdown

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Running FreeBSD current"
+date: 2019-01-29
+comments: true
+tags: freebsd, x230, infra
+---
+
+I have been a FreeBSD user for quite sometime now. I run it on my
+[servers](/blog/2019/01/20/experiments-in-owning-data/index.html), and on my
+personal laptop, a Thinkpad x230.
+
+ One of the main reasons I started experimenting with FreeBSD was to get more
+familiar with internals of a modern UNIX. What better way to learn than to poke
+around source? That's how I ended up building FreeBSD.
+
+__CURRENT__ is the FreeBSD terminology for _"bleeding edge"_ development
+version, [the subversion
+branch](https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/current-stable.html) where
+development happens. All new changes are developed against this branch, so this
+was the target/version that I wanted to build and run.
+
+## The good - Streamlined build
+The code structure of FreeBSD was a big help in doing this, all base components
+that one would need on a minimal UNIX installation is in [a single
+repo](https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/). The components in this repo is
+enough to boot a computer and start writing (C/C++) code on it. Which made
+[compiling and running the development
+head](https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/makeworld.html) a no brainer-less
+than 10 commands job. Take that [LFS](http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/)!
+(sorry, couldn't resist).
+
+```
+# svn update /usr/src
+# cd /usr/src
+# make -j4 buildworld
+# make -j4 kernel
+# shutdown -r now
+# cd /usr/src
+# make installworld
+# mergemaster -Ui
+# shutdown -r now
+```
+
+## The Bad - Takes too long
+However compiling the entire tree is resource intensive, and it takes ~4 hours
+to build on my old Thinkpad, CPU usage will be at 100% and the laptop will be
+more or less unusable while building. This severely limited the frequency of
+updating code on laptop.
+
+### Mailing list to rescue
+
+People at the [FreeBSD-Current mailing
+list](https://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-current@freebsd.org/msg175370.html)
+pointed out that I could just reuse the builds from my server. So that's what I
+have done, I have yet another hetzner box building FreeBSD-CURRENT periodically
+with
+
+```
+cd /usr/src && svn update .
+make -j 4 buildkernel buildworld KERNCONF=GENERIC-LAPTOP | tee /var/log/lastbuild.log
+```
+
+and I pull it to my laptop with rsync, with roughly following
+
+```
+cd /usr
+rsync -avz builder:/usr/src .
+rsync -avz builder:/usr/obj .
+
+cd /usr/src
+make -j4 installkernel KERNCONF=GENERIC-LAPTOP
+shutdown -r now
+make -j4 installworld KERNCONF=GENERIC-LAPTOP
+```
+
+## The Ugly - Nothing yet
+Sorry to disappoint, I haven't come across any really bad things yet `¯\_(ツ)_/¯`.
+
+There is always risk of really breaking your system with an experimental OS
+version. I am yet to run across into that. That will eventually force me to use
+[ZFS boot environments](https://mwl.io/archives/2363), I guess.
+
+## That's all folks!
+Except for [some minor hiccups](/blog/2019/01/08/recurse-center-day-%23-2/index.html) the experience running CURRENT have been
+smooth, I will keep this blog updated if it breaks :-)