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Especially when you can get Linux emulation in OpenBSD.

This is probably atleast part of the reason... 2TB served in a single day from 550mhz xeon p3. The previous record was 1.39TB, and was also a FreeBSD server (a 500mhz xeon p3).

Except when they steal code off each other, possibly breaking each others license. Even Microsoft steals BSD code.

"We're very pleased to have servers that we built, running the FreeBSD operating system, set new milestones like this. It really shows just how well our large servers can perform in real-world situations using freely available software", Greenman said. "Equally impressive is the server's stability. It was pumping out upwards of 300 million bits per second to over 3000 users at a time for the past several days without a glitch and has been operating crash-free under similarly high loads for nearly two months now."

I've always been a fan of FreeBSD. How does OpenBSD compare?

First of all, great work. FreeBSD (and the others) will benefit greatly from this!

The only problem I have is that you're only searching "major FreeBSD search engines." Now, I know it's a beta, but there is quite a lot of other sites that, while not being a search engine, have contributed to the advancement of FreeBSD. Examples: Daemonnews's Search Page FreeBSDDiary, BSDToday, and of course Slashdot!. You might also think about adding newgroups, discussions, etc. Don't forget that the other BSD sites can also provide information that covers FreeBSD. Don't think they're "not worthy."

Keep up the good work!

This is not terribly surprising, considering that Microsoft has been down with OCC (other companies' code) for years.

Don't forget about one of the best arguments against Microsoft's FUD regarding the evils of OSS:

OSS is what keeps Windows connected to the Internet

-D

You're thinking of Jordan Hubbard.

I read that Wind River will be contributing more features back to the FreeBSD community. According to an article I read (Wind River announces product rollout plans for future BSD/OS releases), FreeBSD 6.0 will be based on be based on Wind River's VxWorks microkernel.

SMPng - fully threaded, preemptable and re-entrant kernel with interrupt handlers running as threads. More than one CPU can run in the kernel simultaneously.

devfs - fully dynamic device creation and tear-down (for things like PCCARD and USB).

Geom - stackable disk model (http://www.freebsd.org/~phk/Geom)

Newcard - New PCCARD/CARDBUS subsystem with much better support for newer hardware (like CARDBUS) and integration with FreeBSD's newbus driver API.

gcc 3.0 - Upgrade to latest compiler technology

source

Of course you would. When the thinkpad group tried to screw over FreeBSD by using the FreeBSD disk ID.

To remind you if when this happened.

Can be found here

The heart of the argument is that the GPL is like "Creeping Marxism", since software is written to be shared by all, instead of sold for a profit.

Evans Data study announces that BSD is one of the most popular embedded operating systems

Evans Data Corporation, a market research company focused on the software development community, announced in their mbedded Systems Developer Survey that BSD Unix will grow to be the #5 most popular embedded operating system in 2002 -- up from this year, when BSD did not even appear on the chart. Wasabi Systems is a developer of NetBSD, the number one BSD operating system in the embedded market space.

Embedded operating systems are used in products where computers aren't visible to the end-user, such as consumer electronics (PDAs, cell phones), household appliances, and higher-end products such as Internet boxes and servers.

The Evans report surveyed 500 embedded systems developers to study multiple aspects of embedded systems' development, including hardware and software platforms, Linux, Java and open source software, types of applications, embedded databases and development tools. Developers indicated that open source code, royalty-free licensing and a large community of knowledgeable developers were cited as key benefits.

Evans Data Corporation provides custom quantitative and qualitative research, as well as subscriptions to the North American Developer Survey, the International Developer Survey, the Enterprise Development Management Issues survey series, the Linux Developer series, the Database Developer Survey, the Wireless Developer Survey and the Embedded Systems Developer Survey.

The truth is out, and it won't be contained. *BSD is thriving.

Evans Data study announces that BSD is one of the most popular embedded operating systems

Evans Data Corporation, a market research company focused on the software development community, announced in their mbedded Systems Developer Survey that BSD Unix will grow to be the #5 most popular embedded operating system in 2002 -- up from this year, when BSD did not even appear on the chart. Wasabi Systems is a developer of NetBSD, the number one BSD operating system in the embedded market space.

Embedded operating systems are used in products where computers aren't visible to the end-user, such as consumer electronics (PDAs, cell phones), household appliances, and higher-end products such as Internet boxes and servers.

The Evans report surveyed 500 embedded systems developers to study multiple aspects of embedded systems' development, including hardware and software platforms, Linux, Java and open source software, types of applications, embedded databases and development tools. Developers indicated that open source code, royalty-free licensing and a large community of knowledgeable developers were cited as key benefits.

Evans Data Corporation provides custom quantitative and qualitative research, as well as subscriptions to the North American Developer Survey, the International Developer Survey, the Enterprise Development Management Issues survey series, the Linux Developer series, the Database Developer Survey, the Wireless Developer Survey and the Embedded Systems Developer Survey.

The truth is out. *BSD is thriving.

Evans Data study announces that BSD is one of the most popular embedded operating systems.

Evans Data Corporation, a market research company focused on the software development community, announced in their mbedded Systems Developer Survey that BSD Unix will grow to be the #5 most popular embedded operating system in 2002 -- up from this year, when BSD did not even appear on the chart. Wasabi Systems is a developer of NetBSD, the number one BSD operating system in the embedded market space.

Embedded operating systems are used in products where computers aren't visible to the end-user, such as consumer electronics (PDAs, cell phones), household appliances, and higher-end products such as Internet boxes and servers.

The Evans report surveyed 500 embedded systems developers to study multiple aspects of embedded systems' development, including hardware and software platforms, Linux, Java and open source software, types of applications, embedded databases and development tools. Developers indicated that open source code, royalty-free licensing and a large community of knowledgeable developers were cited as key benefits.

Evans Data Corporation provides custom quantitative and qualitative research, as well as subscriptions to the North American Developer Survey, the International Developer Survey, the Enterprise Development Management Issues survey series, the Linux Developer series, the Database Developer Survey, the Wireless Developer Survey and the Embedded Systems Developer Survey.

The truth is out and you can't hide it any more. *BSD is thriving.

Evans Data study announces that BSD is one of the most popular embedded operating systems

Evans Data Corporation, a market research company focused on the software development community, announced in their mbedded Systems Developer Survey that BSD Unix will grow to be the #5 most popular embedded operating system in 2002 -- up from this year, when BSD did not even appear on the chart. Wasabi Systems is a developer of NetBSD, the number one BSD operating system in the embedded market space.

Embedded operating systems are used in products where computers aren't visible to the end-user, such as consumer electronics (PDAs, cell phones), household appliances, and higher-end products such as Internet boxes and servers.

The Evans report surveyed 500 embedded systems developers to study multiple aspects of embedded systems' development, including hardware and software platforms, Linux, Java and open source software, types of applications, embedded databases and development tools. Developers indicated that open source code, royalty-free licensing and a large community of knowledgeable developers were cited as key benefits.

Evans Data Corporation provides custom quantitative and qualitative research, as well as subscriptions to the North American Developer Survey, the International Developer Survey, the Enterprise Development Management Issues survey series, the Linux Developer series, the Database Developer Survey, the Wireless Developer Survey and the Embedded Systems Developer Survey.

The truth is out. *BSD is thriving.

Probably had something to do with this. It's an interesting comment on the still ongoing BSD license vs. GPL debate. Admittedly, Jordan Hubbard was not as single-handedly responsible for FreeBSD as Linus for Linux, but he was one of the co-founders. Apparently the GPL can handle Linus focussing on Transmeta, but the BSD License can't handle JH leaving for Apple. Then again, maybe it's just a coincidence.

Now, as a complete aside to the above post:

Sigh...I am getting tired of this "who is less of a dick" debate. Folks, have a look at the email traffic on the public boards. Darren Reed was the one who originally brought the whole discussion public. No, I am not going to bother with a link, since it is in the previous /. story. What I am going to suggest that most of the people here have a look at the email traffic on both the IPF and OpenBSD boards going back for over a year. It might clarify some things for you.

Distributing IPF as part of a ports tree doesn't break any licensing requirements for any of the BSD's, is my understanding. As for the discussions about whether Free/Net BSD's will use this, it is not the same issue as it is with Open BSD, since Open was distributing IPF as part of its INTEGRATED base install. Theo and crew didn't have much of a choice on pulling it out, based on their own licensing requirements.

mrgoat

Addison-Wesley has the TOC and publishing info

The author's website has errata, more info and a link to known online reviews including an informative review at BSD Today

Addison-Wesley has the TOC and publishing info

The author's website has errata, more info and a link to known online reviews including an informative review at BSD Today

You don't seem to be listening.

Lets see what 'we' can agree on.

The partition IDs are well documented. Do you accept this as a true statement?

IBM makes claims about how they follow standards in the industry. Do you agree this statement is true?

If you agree the above is true, then how did a 'standards following firm' manage to take a well documented ID for FreeBSD?

And, please explain why IBM's ANSWER to the problem was 'it is not supported' rather than 'It looks like we took the ID. We will engineer a fix'

Links for you to do some research.
http://bsdtoday.com/2000/November/News342.html
http://slashdot.org/bsd/00/11/29/1855248.shtml

If you bother to actually research this, you will see that IBM stuck its head in the sand, rather than handle the situation.

It's benefited the BSD community because now there is one less site telling the public that BSD is unfit for human consumption.

Read BSD Today's article to get a glimpse of the kind of FUD that our community can well do without.

Yes, I have been following it. The first thing I did was read Tucows' open letter at bsd.tucows.com. The impression I got was that there were *many* people complaining to Tucows. That impression is based off've quotes like this:

Ahh... well, I've been following it for a bit longer than that, which is why reading their statement gave me the impression that they were just making stuff up to try and save face. To be fair, neither of us really knows all the sum of the feedback they have received. I know I wrote them very politely about some of their more glaring errors, and was ignored, and I know others who have done the same. That, and the timing of their announcement, almost immediately following the public criticism, gives me a definate impression of what happened, but I'll admit it's no more than an educated guess. Still, it seems to me extremely unwarranted to assume that the BSDers are at fault here, or to give the statement from tucows any credibility - when all the evidence I have points in the other direction.

Claiming BSD is GPL'd is a pretty blatant mistake to you and me. It should have been to Tucows and their writers/etc, but it wasn't. I don't believe they deserved the flames I'm sure they got, though - and I *know* they got more than the flames from BSD Today or Daemon News.

How do you know that?

I'm not saying they did or they didn't, I don't know, but I find it hard to believe any "faction" of the BSD community would write in to tell them it was really GPL, as their posting implies. At most, perhaps some prankster did, but honestly, if they weren't capable of (and motivated to) spend perhaps 2 minutes to verify the licensing themselves, they had no business trying to run a BSD site to begin with, IMHOP. And this was far from their only error, the article from bsdtoday lists several more that would be apparent to anyone that had bothered to read the FAQs before pronouncing themselves an authority.

If in fact people were pointing out the incorrect information to Tucows and they chose not to fix it... well, that's their deal. They can choose to shut the site down, which is probably best if they don't have any knowledgable people or at least any people who care.

Exactly.

• "Yes, BSD has been around a lot longer, but to be honest, it hasn't really come anywhere in the last few years, whereas Linux distributions have gone from being as frightening to install and maintain as FreeBSD (think Slackware 3.0 here) to something as elegant as Conectiva or Mandrake." (I'm better than you are)
• "After reading the FreeBSD Handbook, you attempt the install. Everything seems to go smoothly, but when you boot the system, it hangs. You go in search of help, reading the FAQ How-To sections, but can't figure out where to begin, or what the problem is. So you go on IRC and get flamed for asking for some help. I guess Microsoft just got another Windows 2000 user." (Not everyone is an expert)
• "If FreeBSD wants to believe that they are so good, and so elite, then eventually the system will only be used (and usable) by so few people that it won't really matter. Instead of admitting their faults, they could continue to point the finger at everyone else?s, while ignoring the majority of users. So go ahead, pretend that what you've got is perfect and that nothing needs to change. Watch what happens." (New FreeBSD Core Team)
• "In this [Jordan K. Hubbard's] article, he openly admits to some of the shortcomings of FreeBSD -- particularly its installation process -- and discusses some possible solutions. In my opinion, the future looks bleak." (The future of FreeBSD?)
• "I wouldn't recommend it [OpenBSD] for a desktop machine, though. You have to give up some of the "fluff" to get the security." (The uncrackable OpenBSD)
• "New users should steer clear of OpenBSD." (Open BSD 2.6)
• "At best, NetBSD is a minimal operating system. It seems stable, but configuring it is an adventure every time. That, combined with a lack of applications support, make this an easy candidate to pass over in lieu of more user-friendly Operating Systems." (A review of NetBSD 1.4.2)

see their crap??

IBM's ThinkPad moels A20, A21, T20, T21 or X20 will fail to boot every OS (including Windows) after installing FreeBSD until the hard disk is removed from the laptop and the FreeBSD partition is wiped clean. This is because IBM DID NOT FOLLOW OPEN STANDARDS.

The Slashdot story on this was here, and the BSDToday story (which Slashdot copied) is here.

Details:

IBM uses a Phoenix BIOS in their Thinkpads. Phoenix chose not to do 3 minutes of research on the internet, and they didn't find Andries E. Brouwer's List of partition identifiers for PCs. Because Phoenix didn't care about Open Standards, they used partition type 0xA5 for their hibernation partition type. FreeBSD has used this partition type for years Andries's Partition Identifier page has been around since 1995.

At boot time, when the FreeBSD partition is seen (and thought to be a hibernation partition), the BIOS panics, doesn't know what to do, and the entire laptop is dead in the water, after FreeBSD is installed. The only fix is to physically remove the hard drive from the broken laptop, install it into a working machine, and wipe clean the FreeBSD partition.

IBM claims to support Linux, and they claim to support Open Standards. Yet they chose Phoenix for their BIOS, despite the fact that the recent Phoenix BIOS is non- Open Standards compliant. Even if IBM had no knowledge of Phoenix's bad choice, they share some culpability for not testing and checking. (In the worst case, IBM is hugely culpable for purposely and wilfully violating Open Standards.) IBM used to have a support page in which they said that they would not support FreeBSD on their hardware; they have taken the page down.

If IBM will not do 3 minutes of research on the internet and check for Open Standards before implementing something, so that they don't violate Open Standards, how long will it take before Linux is affected? How long will it take before IBM violates some Open Standard related to Linux?

If IBM will purposely chose a company that produces software which is not Open Standards compliant, and will not do anything to remedy the problem, how long will it take before they chose software from another vendor that directly and negatively affects Linux?

If Linux support means anything, then it means adherance to Open Standards. IBM screwed the pooch on this one. Maybe the fact that they've taken their page down means that they are going to fix the problem. Maybe it means that they are going to try to hide the problem and pretend it doesn't exist. They have not yet apologized.

Recommendation:

For now, I am boycotting all IBM products, including their RS6000 line. I urge you to do the same. This screw-up (with no apology and no fix forthcoming) indicates that IBM really does not care about Open Standards compliance.

Kenneth J. Hendrickson

If you're using BSD, see the Deploying Portsentry article on BSD Today.

If you're using BSD, see the Deploying Portsentry article on BSD Today.

[OT] I don't go in for OS wars but I decided to try out OpenBSD for the firewall. It's soo easy I can't only reccomend it enough. The documentation is excellent and there are even articles for the exact the role I wanted it for.

The only thing I would say about it is to make sure you use good NICs. I started out with a couple of no-name NE2000 jobbies but eventually ended up with 3Com's in there. But that's the same for any OS I guess.

wrighty.

If I want BSD news, I'd just head to BSD Today, Daily Daemon News, or the OpenBSD User's Journal, rather than waiting a month for new stuff.

Granted, BSD doesn't move quite as fast as Linux, but one issue every four weeks? That's just not enough any more.

-- Floyd

I went looking for some more details on RTMX O/S - OpenBSD integration and found an article at:
http://www.bsdtoday.com/2000/June/Ne ws196.html

"Randy Lewis of RTMX said they started providing real-time code to the OpenBSD project last October or November, but lately, the integration of the real-time code has become more emphasized."

"Several engineers are currently working on integrating the RTMX O/S code into the OpenBSD 2.7 release, said Lewis. And he said that it will be completely integrated before the OpenBSD 2.8 release (in about six months). Once it is working on at least three architectures, Lewis said, it will be committed to OpenBSD and it will be officially announced."

• Less time spend closing hole(!), following bugtrack, upgrading faulty software, etc.
  
• You spend more time setting up your server, but as a reward you get increased preemptive security, strong knowledge of your system and by derivation, a stronger ability to deal quickly and efficiently with incidents.
• You are more confident, less subject to stress, so you think better.
• Everything you learn is standard stuff, which will be usefull everywhere you go. Conversely, you stop cloggering your brain with lists of distribution dependent problems, exploits, holes...
• You have more time to develop your system and educate users.
• Your boss can boast to his peer (and competitors) when they go offline while he doesn't. That's what you want, right?
• You live longer.