Highlights of changes that appeared already in 13.1/13.2

[emaste]

Summary

These are significant/notable changes in 14.0 that have been MFC'd and are also in 13.1 or 13.2. If we want to include some/all of these we'll need to figure out how best to represent these - perhaps moving them into the appropriate sections (userland/drivers/etc.) and add an annotation that they were also merged back to 13.x? Or a section for "notable new features since 13.0" with a note that these features also appeared in 13.1 or 13.2.

I have updated most gitrefs to reflect the original main commit (except for one that is a merge of many commits, noted with XXX).

I think we definitely want to mention some of these, e.g. ASLR/PIE.

[• karels]

Generally looks good. I think I prefer a separate section, so people who know 13.1/13.2 can skip past. Note, I tried to use the [MERGED] notation, and neither I nor carlavilla@ could escape it properly.

There are two things already in the notes that were in 13.2, but were not documented in those release notes. One is igc(4); I'd have to look for the other. I'm tempted to leave them where they are, but they could move into this section.

website/content/en/releases/14.0R/relnotes.adoc

131

maybe merged "to 13.1 or 13.2"?

Also, should this be first or last? I think first, but I thought I'd ask. It should be after the sample entry.

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One line per sentence.

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One line per sentence.

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One line per sentence.

181

I don't know where to find information about copying/noncopying mode, or growing the staging area. Any man page refs? Also, one sentence per line.

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One sentence per line.

263

I think netlink is in GENERIC in 14.0, or maybe it is automatically loaded?

[emaste]

website/content/en/releases/14.0R/relnotes.adoc

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these were all just copy-pasted (and edited) from the 13.1/13.2 notes. will reformat.

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I can find and add the commit in a moment. I'm not sure if there's documentation in a man page though. @kib?

263

It is yes -- 3091d980f581753f86df4155057b4ef23eb3ad27 netlink: add NETLINK to the DEFAULTS for each architecture. Will update, and this item then doesn't belong in the "already merged" section. Might mention in the description, but I don't think we want two separate notes (one for Netlink as already merged, one for enabling by default as new for 14)

[emaste]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38220235

What is causing this to be a major release vs not just being a point release?

Genuinely curious, since I can't gleam that from skimming the release notes.

This comment is representative of the confusion some people have over our release model, and one of the reasons that I want to include important work that happened to have been MFC'd already.

[imp]

I love the concept. Have a couple of quibbles.

website/content/en/releases/14.0R/relnotes.adoc

131

Highlight of changes merged to stable/13 after 13.0?

Highlight of changes since 13.0 in stable/13?

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We always copy on other architectures (since we don't have the legacy kernel problem there, or we've chosen to ignore it). 99.99% of the time this change is invisble. Systems that worked before work no. Many systems that had memory in the wrong places now work w/o problems.

@kib might know for sure, but I'm not aware of anybody needing to change this since the earliest days of it being in the tree...

185

nvme is also more robust in the face of errors than it was in 13.0. Some of these changes are in stable/13, but they are all in stable/14 and 14.0R. This is a different bullet point, though. The performance improvements at boot time... There's other performance improvements at run time as well, though those are harder to quantify.

Likewise, a number of robustness changes for EFI booting have been merged since 13.0.... Everything up to when I started working on kboot in earnest.

[• karels]

website/content/en/releases/14.0R/relnotes.adoc

263

There was a 14.0 generic item for "additions and improvements" to netlink. I've been asking melifaro@ for any more info, but haven't received anything yet. I don't think the 13.x section here adds much, though. Could add the "now in GENERIC" mention.

[• karels]

website/content/en/releases/14.0R/relnotes.adoc

131

The release notes should only be about releases, not the stable branch. For example, something that was merged to stable/13 after 13.2 should already be in the 14.0 section.

[emaste]

website/content/en/releases/14.0R/relnotes.adoc

131

I mainly used this as a placeholder, as I wasn't sure if we'd rather mix these into the individual sections, or have them all in one (and then in that section have userland, drivers, subsections etc.)

Maybe
Significant Changes since 13.0
and then some commentary like
FreeBSD 14.0 includes over two and a half years of development since the release of FreeBSD 13.0. Some of this work was cherry-picked into older development branches, and was included in FreeBSD 13.x minor releases.

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I think the short version is in general you don't have to do anything; systems that previously failed EFI booting now work.

[grahamperrin]

website/content/en/releases/14.0R/relnotes.adoc

181

https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=loader.efi&sektion=8&manpath=freebsd-release (at a glance) at/around Staging Slop

[grahamperrin]

From https://reviews.freebsd.org/D35213#866588:

Unexpected loss of free space has taken some users by surprise.

Maybe take this opportunity to document automated creation of boot environments?

[emaste]

update based on review feedback

[emaste]

Maybe take this opportunity to document automated creation of boot environments?

Not a bad idea although I'm not sure exactly what to say, will take a look.

website/content/en/releases/14.0R/relnotes.adoc

181

Thanks, updated.

[bcr]

Resolve the XXX instance. The rest looks good to me and I find it good to have such a document to detail the changes between major release versions.

website/content/en/releases/14.0R/relnotes.adoc

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This XXX needs to be removed before publication.

[emaste]

Resolve XXX comment

[• karels]

website/content/en/releases/14.0R/relnotes.adoc

833

This sentence has no remaining kernel bits, but maybe it is still best to keep it with the rest of this paragraph rather than moving to userland. What do you think?

[emaste]

website/content/en/releases/14.0R/relnotes.adoc

833

Yes I think it makes sense to keep with networking.

[• karels]

I think it looks good as it is now.

[jhb]

Generally LGTM

website/content/en/releases/14.0R/relnotes.adoc

131

You could maybe just say "13" instead of "13.x"? But either one is fine.

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201

832

[• karels]

I think it looks good as it is now.

website/content/en/releases/14.0R/relnotes.adoc

131

Or just list 13.1 and 13.2. I'm not fond of 13.x, in part because it includes 13.0 (but that's not a minor release).