Well, FreeBSD world. time had come to update to 12.1 release and thankfully its been much easier than the jump from 11.x to 12.0 Merge did not throw up any issues and 12.1 base built itself overnight ready for installing yesterday morning.
Only pain has been trying to stop python2 getting installed with re-installing all the ports. I think I am just going to have to accept until everything is rebuilt and then remove it. Default versions have been defined in make.conf but seems some ports ignore.
Biggest challenge I was running the Kmod-legacy-drm drivers in the belief these were correct. Several reboots and reinstalls and tinkering did not resolve the unreadable display at boot time meant I had to SSH in from elsewhere to work on it. The cure in the end was quite simple, install the current kmod driver port and voila hi-res text and graphics have been restored. Only issue now is that the Mate Desktop menu’s have disappeared to I can’t actually quit the desktop. but least I can work the box directly now.
EDIT: reinstall of Mate notifications and menu ports has restored my menus.