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Theo de Raadt recently announced that the Sparc64 port of OpenBSD has had a memory model change. Due to this change, there will be no supported upgrade from 3.0 to the upcoming 3.1 release. Instead, one will need to reinstall... In rather non-technical speak, Theo explains, "You must reinstall, due to the binaries having been changed in fiddly internal ways." He adds, "So just reinstall if you have a sparc64, ok? You will be happy. Some compiler bugs are fixed as a result!"
This only affects the Sparc64 port - no others.
From: Theo de Raadt
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 10:42:53 -0700
Subject: sparc64 flag day
the sparc64 just underwent a flag day. The memory model has been changed.
There will be no upgrade from 3.0 to 3.1 on the sparc64. You must
reinstall, due to the binaries having been changed in fiddly internal
ways. Just reinstall. You could very carefully upgrade, but then
other issues might happen, like packages you are using, etc.
So just reinstall if you have a sparc64, ok? You will be happy. Some
compiler bugs are fixed as a result!
What about other program binaries from 3.0?
What about other program binaries from 3.0? Once re-install is done, can they be copied and used? Or is the model change so pervasive as to prevent even this? If a commercial vendor is distributing only binary of their application, does this mean they have to make 2 versions for a while to accomodate pre-3.1 systems?
Reinstall Mandatory
> There will be no upgrade from 3.0 to 3.1 on the sparc64. You must
> reinstall, due to the binaries having been changed in fiddly internal
> ways. Just reinstall. You could very carefully upgrade, but then
> other issues might happen, like packages you are using, etc.
>
> So just reinstall if you have a sparc64, ok? You will be happy. Some
> compiler bugs are fixed as a result!
So I think it's obvious from Theo's post that you NEED to REINSTALL.
I don't think any closed-source application would be released for a pre-3.1 snapshot anyway. They would at least wait for 3.1 to be released - it was in June right?
I am all for drastic changes. I mean backwards-compatibilty is the main reason why our Athlons/P4's have to use sooooo many transistors and therefore get really hot. Anyone remember the Gate-20 stuff that is still in there in the processors just because theyre backwards-comptible ;)
--
I used to have a sig until the great Kahuna of FOOness
told me to dump it and use /dev/urandom instead.