Legacy tree

[grahamperrin]

https://www.palemoon.org/download.shtml mentions a legacy tree. Please, what's this?

(It's not mentioned in the FAQ area.)

[Night Wing]

Legacy tree is a "beta". Betas are usually buggy and people use them to find bugs and try to fix them. If you are not a power user, install/use at "your own risk".

I never use beta software because that is the realm of a power user which I am not. I'm just a non-technical user that knows enough to not get myself into trouble so I only use software which is classified for "final release".

[grahamperrin]

Thanks,

Legacy tree is a "beta" …

So, what's later than the legacy tree?

From the current edition of the page:

FreeBSD 64-bit GTK2 (beta) (Legacy tree or later)

FreeBSD 64-bit GTK3 (beta) (Legacy tree or later)

Retrospective: https://web.archive.org/web/20230314212 ... load.shtml none of the three betas had a legacy tree context.

(I'm an occasional committer, but not a developer. I'm a power user, but not especially powerful with my testing of Pale Moon.)

[dbsoft]

FreeBSD "Legacy" stable branch, meaning currently FreeBSD 12.

https://www.freebsd.org/

Supported Releases

Production: 13.2
Legacy: 12.4
Upcoming: 14.0

[grahamperrin]

Thanks, can someone correct the page? Closest to plain English might be:

FreeBSD 12.4-RELEASE and higher

The FreeBSD Project has three source trees, none of which is legacy.

Each of the three trees has main as its default branch.

Currently supported branches comprise releng/12.4, stable/12, releng/13.2 and stable/13.

(We have inconsistencies at and around the FreeBSD Project site. IIRC, legacy was written out of https://www.freebsd.org/where/ some time ago … since https://reviews.freebsd.org/D40164#934195 updated some areas, the download page seems to be outdated; and so on.)

Thanks

[dbsoft]

The versions are going to change later this year when 14 is released, 13 will become "Legacy" 14 will become "Production" and 15 will be created as "Current" ... Which is why it is listed as "Legacy" to show that it is the older stable branch. If there is a better way to list it I am interested to hear it.

The main FreeBSD.org page literally lists it as "Legacy"

[grahamperrin]

… when 14 is released, 13 will become "Legacy" …

No, 13.⋯-RELEASE will continue to be production (not legacy) long after 14.0-RELEASE.

Consider http://archive.today/2023.03.17-152841/ ... eebsd.org/ where 12.3-RELEASE and 12.4-RELEASE were production twenty-three months after 13.0-RELEASE … and so on.

[grahamperrin]

𠉥… If there is a better way to list it I am interested to hear it. …

As suggested above, FreeBSD 12.4-RELEASE and higher.

TIA

[dbsoft]

As suggested above, FreeBSD 12.4-RELEASE and higher.

Well I disagree with that, but if you want to get them to label it something different on the main page I will get it changed. I want to reference the oldest stable branch, the main page lists it as Legacy currently so will refer to it as Legacy, not going to put in a version number that will be changing.

[grahamperrin]

Thanks.

Let's note that 12.4-RELEASE (the tag, previously tagged release/12.4.0) was at a point in time on the stable/12 branch.

Re: oldest, I should not expect support (from the FreeBSD Project or community) for anything older from stable/12.

Also, please note that Legacy will disappear from the home page.

HTH

[dbsoft]

Ok you are talking about stuff that isn't consequential. Pale Moon will support the oldest stable branch. Currently any FreeBSD version 12 or later should work, whether it is from the stable or releng is not important.

If both are called "Production" there is no way to differentiate between the two. The change on the main page calling the newer one Production and the older one Legacy makes perfect sense. If you are just going to get them to both be called Production again you are making things even more confusing. Please don't undo progress.

[grahamperrin]

… Please don't undo progress.

Pardon?

As a doc committer, my intention is to improve documentation.

[dbsoft]

As a doc committer, my intention is to improve documentation.

Well removing "Legacy" alone is not an improvement. You have not stated what you intend to do, but you stated that the "Legacy" label will be going away, without indicating what will be there in its place. Having both just labeled as "Production" the way it was before is not an improvement, it is confusing. The "Production" for the newer stable branch and "Legacy" for the older stable branch is an improvement in my opinion.

So I am imploring you not to go back to the way it was before, maybe there are better labels. You are keen to point out none of the branches are labeled "Legacy" however none are labeled "Production" either. To me the improvement is to label things Production and Legacy everywhere they aren't currently labeled like that following the main page.

[dbsoft]

If there is no clear way to refer to the different stable branches, it could be described as "A supported version of FreeBSD" I suppose but I'd really like to be able to refer to the older stable branch/tree without using a version number. How do you do that?

[Night Wing]

@ grahamperrin

Looks like the term, "beta", is causing a problem. I will make an analogy to make it easier to understand (at least it does for me).

The term, "beta, stands for newly created software which will be "buggy" with errors. There is another term too. It is named, "alpha", for newly created software that contains "buggy" software.

This analogy will be for MX Linux.

Before MX Linux 23 "Libretto" was released, the version before 23 was MX Linux 21.3 "Wildflower".

MX Linux 23 went through stages to find the bugs in the software and fix them. After all the bugs were found by many people and fixed, the software was released as a "final release".

The stages MX Linux 23 went through "before" it was released as a final release took at least two months (or longer) and the stages were:

1) MX Linux 23 alpha 1
2) MX Linux 23 alpha 2
3) MX Linux 23 beta 1
4) MX Linux 23 beta 2
5) MX Linux 23 RC1 (Release Candidate 1)
6) MX Linux 23 RC2
7) MX Linux 23 RC3

After RC3, then came the "final release" which was released on the MX Linux site for end users to download and install on their computers on July 31st. The link for the MX downloads is below so you can see all the choices people have for different desktop environments for MX Linux 23 "Libretto" (at the date of this posting).

https://mxlinux.org/download-links/

I hope this clears things up for you. Like I said in my first post in this topic. I do not try out alpha software and I do not try out beta software. In MX Linux, I also do not try out RC (release candidate) software either. I do not have enough linux knowledge to run across errors and fix them because I am not a power user in linux.

I let the power users find and fix the errors in the stages above. Since I'm a non-technical user, this makes me an "end user" where the final release does not cause me any problems.

[grahamperrin]

… could be described as "A supported version of FreeBSD" …

I thought of much the same phrase, earlier today … if this is the intention, then IMHO there's no need for a statement.

(The two downloads for Linux are, simply, for Linux; the two for FreeBSD can be, simply, for FreeBSD.)

[grahamperrin]

@ grahamperrin

Looks like the term, "beta", is causing a problem. …

Thanks, but there's no misunderstanding in this area.

[Moonchild]

I don't think the wording is wrong. I will not be using a moving target point version number that needs constant updating.
The FreeBSD website itself calls the releases Legacy, Production and Upcoming, so that will be the wording used (I'll update the more detailed page accordingly). Whether you're using beta or release builds on each of those branches is not going to be relevant for us and using beta will be your choice; we won't target specific builds, just general major revisions/branches that are in active support.

[grahamperrin]

… The FreeBSD website itself calls the releases Legacy, Production and Upcoming, …

Not the main Download page (linked prominently from two parts of the Project home page, and from three parts of the FreeBSD Documentation Portal front page) – where 12.4 is production, not legacy.

Discussion is ongoing, it's too soon to tell which page(s) will be fixed.

In the meantime, please do whatever you think will suit your readers without perpetuating any misunderstanding.

For myself, in a nutshell:

1. I assumed that Legacy tree was a Pale Moon-specific expression
2. I learnt that it's not.

Thanks

[Moonchild]

Not sure what to say other than FreeBSD's website maintainers need to not call both v12 and v13 "Production" in some places, but not in others. Both 12 and 13 have -STABLE tags so they are both considered stable (and presumably "ready-for-production") on their respective branches).

I'm going by the FreeBSD home page which is very clear front-and-center (literally!):

freebsdversions1.jpg