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Eric^2 asks: "We have an old NT server that we are going to replace sometime this year. It has Diskeeper on it to do disk defragmentation. I remember from DOS that this was also a BIG problem, and am curious how the EXT2FS handles file fragmentation. Whatever we put in to replace that NT box needs to be fairly resiliant, and I was thinking either FreeBSD, or maybe Linux with the XFS file system, as it's supposed to be more fault tolerant. I would appreciate any suggestions that you may have! Is there a more robust solution than XFS for Linux? FreeBSD? Should I stick with NT and Diskeeper? "

Blue Lang writes: "Saw on the squid mailing list today that the results of the second polygraph Web-cache benchmarks are in, and squid on FreeBSD captured a few top marks, as well as performing exceptionally well overall. Interesting reading, especially as a comparison of free and open systems versus some very well-architected proprietary solutions."

shlong writes "Just wanted to let you all know that the release candidate of FreeBSD 4.0 is now available at the usual places. Both i386 and Alpha iso images are available (and both are bootable!). A full list of changes is at the release notes. "

shlong writes "Just wanted to let you all know that the release candidate of FreeBSD 4.0 is now available at the usual places. Both i386 and Alpha iso images are available (and both are bootable!). A full list of changes is at the release notes. "

MagusX writes "FreeBSD 4.0 has just gone into a 30 day code freeze leading up to release." This is as good an opportunity as any to mention that our earlier "code freeze" story in fact turned out to be a feature freeze in the run up to the release, and not a code freeze. The 30-day freeze is longer than average for FreeBSD, but as this will be a .0 release, it was felt necessary to spend as much time as possible making sure it's as stable as possible.

This security advisory and associated patch documents and fixes a security hole in Berkeley Make, relating to the "-j" option and temporary file name handling. The advisory was issued by the FreeBSD security team, but it is believed that NetBSD and OpenBSD are affected as well. Obviously, if you have downloaded Berkeley Make to a non-BSD system then you should investigate as well.

FreeBSD has now entered code freeze for the up and coming 4.0 release. In the words of Jordan Hubbard, the release engineer; The code freeze will last for 15 days, during which time the 4.0 snapshot server (current.freebsd.org) will be cranking out its daily snapshots (and, in the last half of the release cycle, ISO images as well). 4.0 is the first release from the latest FreeBSD -current development branch. Work also continues on the 3.x -stable branch.

FreeBSD has now entered code freeze for the up and coming 4.0 release. In the words of Jordan Hubbard, the release engineer; The code freeze will last for 15 days, during which time the 4.0 snapshot server (current.freebsd.org) will be cranking out its daily snapshots (and, in the last half of the release cycle, ISO images as well). 4.0 is the first release from the latest FreeBSD -current development branch. Work also continues on the 3.x -stable branch.

Mal_ writes "The first alpha version of Opera for Linux has been released. There are still a number of key features missing, but rendering of HTML 3.2 and 4.0, and CSS is apparently working. The release is binary only, and requires GLIBC 2.1 and kernel 2.2.*, although the team are working on several other Unix ports. You can get more info and download the binary at the Opera Web Site. " Update: 01/05 03:00 by N : Reports are coming in that this beta also works under FreeBSD's Linux ABI. Chris Piazza has made this screenshot available.

By the time you read this, FreeBSD 3.4 will have been released. Being a 3.x release, this primarily contains fixes and enhancements to existing parts of the system, rather than complete new functionality and subsystems. Those will come with the 4.0 release, later next year. That said, there are a few new developments that have been shaken out in the -current branch, and have been backported. Read on for more.

On the networking front, the 'netgraph' code has been integrated, giving a much more modular networking framework, allowing arbitrary protocols and transports to be connected together. Amongst other things, this means that PPP over ISDN and PPP over ethernet now work. Many ISPs want to support PPP over ethernet now, and FreeBSD is ideal for this environment. The netgraph code was written and donated to the FreeBSD project by Whistle, and interested hackers can read more information about netgraph.

ISDN support has been improved, with an updated i4b(4) driver. Amongst other things, this adds support for more ISDN cards, including Asuscom ISDNlink 128K, AVM Fritz!Card PCI and PNP, and the Siemens I-Surf 2.0.

There have been security improvements across the board, including a new FreeBSD auditing project, to inspect the source code for potential problems, and fix them as necessary. ICMP redirects, outgoing RSTs, and incoming SYN|FIN frames can all be blocked, to negate certain DoS attacks, and the packet forwarding system can be configured to do so without decreasing the TTL, making gateways and firewalls much less visible, to list a few of the security related enhancements.

The Linux ABI has been improved, thanks to the efforts of Marcel Moolenaar. Linux versions of Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament work flawlessly (and often faster) on FreeBSD, as do many other apps for which only Linux binaries are available.

As well as these, there have been the general plethora of fixes, updates, improvements to the documentation, and additions to the ports tree. There are currently more than 2,800 software ports available, from Apache, to Zope, which makes software installation that bit simpler for everyone.

FreeBSD 3.4 is available now.

By the time you read this, FreeBSD 3.4 will have been released. Being a 3.x release, this primarily contains fixes and enhancements to existing parts of the system, rather than complete new functionality and subsystems. Those will come with the 4.0 release, later next year. That said, there are a few new developments that have been shaken out in the -current branch, and have been backported. Read on for more.

On the networking front, the 'netgraph' code has been integrated, giving a much more modular networking framework, allowing arbitrary protocols and transports to be connected together. Amongst other things, this means that PPP over ISDN and PPP over ethernet now work. Many ISPs want to support PPP over ethernet now, and FreeBSD is ideal for this environment. The netgraph code was written and donated to the FreeBSD project by Whistle, and interested hackers can read more information about netgraph.

ISDN support has been improved, with an updated i4b(4) driver. Amongst other things, this adds support for more ISDN cards, including Asuscom ISDNlink 128K, AVM Fritz!Card PCI and PNP, and the Siemens I-Surf 2.0.

There have been security improvements across the board, including a new FreeBSD auditing project, to inspect the source code for potential problems, and fix them as necessary. ICMP redirects, outgoing RSTs, and incoming SYN|FIN frames can all be blocked, to negate certain DoS attacks, and the packet forwarding system can be configured to do so without decreasing the TTL, making gateways and firewalls much less visible, to list a few of the security related enhancements.

The Linux ABI has been improved, thanks to the efforts of Marcel Moolenaar. Linux versions of Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament work flawlessly (and often faster) on FreeBSD, as do many other apps for which only Linux binaries are available.

As well as these, there have been the general plethora of fixes, updates, improvements to the documentation, and additions to the ports tree. There are currently more than 2,800 software ports available, from Apache, to Zope, which makes software installation that bit simpler for everyone.

FreeBSD 3.4 is available now.

From Wes Peters, via DaemonNews. Intel's InBusiness Storage Station is a network file server in-a-box. Intel, despite their investment in Linux companies, is using FreeBSD as their OS of choice, as they are now stating. Of particular interest is their Mean Time Between Failure, 77,244 hours, or a shade under 9 years. That's probably a little on the low side, but quite respectable nonetheless.

After last Sunday's story about Microsoft looking for Linux skills, Alfred Perlstein wrote in with the news that talented FreeBSD admins can also find themselves positions with Microsoft, in particular, at Hotmail. The Hotmail guys do seem to have a sense of humour though; witness hostnames like rotate-the-shield-harmonics.hotmail.com.

With the success of various IPOs lately, there are a lot of new millionaires in the Open Source community running around. It's heartwarming to those of us with long-standing roots in Open Source and a deep commitment to it to see this "validation," of sorts, towards the ideals that we hold dear. Unfortunately, as postings on Slashdot clearly indicate, it also fosters some resentment. Will Open Source's own success destroy the grass roots effort that forms its foundation?

This isn't some idle speculation. Linux, FreeBSD, Apache, PHP and others depend on the wide and varied developer community in order to grow and develop. People who helped got some 'Net notice, their names in the contributor lists and a warm fuzzy feeling that they were helping the effort. But now people are seeing companies and individuals making staggeringly large amounts of money, and are asking "When am I gonna get mine?" Not that they were/are "in it" for the money alone, but, after all, they think, "others are making major bucks." Some other developers are asking themselves why they should put forth so much of their own time and effort to simply benefit the corporate bottom line of a company that, they feel, has deserted the common Open Source contributor.

Of course, that's not totally true. Usually the company implements a "Directed Shares" program that allows significant Open Source contributors to purchase shares at the pre-IPO price. Still, things have not gone smoothly in these programs, with last minute changes in pricing and implementation causing even those "chosen" members to scramble about. And even if you did get in on the 2 big ones, RedHat and VA Linux, and had the money to buy the maximum amount of shares, and cashed in at the best possible time, you would have made about $150,000 (before taxes). Not exactly chump change, but for people who have put 4 or 5 years of significant effort into Open Source, the payoff may seem a little small.

So what will happen? Well, I'm certain we'll see a weeding out of some developers. Some will leave in search of obtaining some of that money out there. Others will leave because the playing field has changed, and recognition by your peers may no longer have the attraction that it once had, what with gobs of money floating around. Others will "follow the money" and start contributing to Open Source in hopes of "getting in" on the action, maybe even dropping any efforts on such projects where there are no perceived fiscal payoffs: "What, they aren't going public soon? Forget them! I'll work on Foobar."

And there will be some of us who stay because, well, even though the world may have changed, we haven't. All the things that made contributing to Open Source are still valid and vital. And so while we may look a little enviously at the stock market pages, and have to endure people asking "Why are you wasting your time" or "Why aren't you rich yet", we stay the course. Sometimes rewards are more than what you see on a bank statement; it's a warm and pure satisfaction that goes deeper than your wallet.

Laz writes "I just checked this out on daily.daemonnews.org. Apparently Linus Torvalds has written a patch to the FreeBSD kernel that has been submitted. "

There have been a spate of reports about the usefulness of FreeBSD's Linux ABI recently. First off, Daeron wrote in with the news that VMWare now runs on FreeBSD, thanks to the efforts of Vladimir Silyaev. Vladimir has a page up with instructions and caveats. Secondly, Jacob Hart has confirmed that the Unreal Tournament Demo works flawlessly. Finally, Mark van Woerkom has created FreeBSD ports skeletons for Linux Quake 3 Test.

There have been a spate of reports about the usefulness of FreeBSD's Linux ABI recently. First off, Daeron wrote in with the news that VMWare now runs on FreeBSD, thanks to the efforts of Vladimir Silyaev. Vladimir has a page up with instructions and caveats. Secondly, Jacob Hart has confirmed that the Unreal Tournament Demo works flawlessly. Finally, Mark van Woerkom has created FreeBSD ports skeletons for Linux Quake 3 Test.

Brett Glass sent this message to the FreeBSD -chat mailing list, about his experiences and perceptions at COMDEX, and agreed to let me repost it here. Of particular interest are the problems he had trying to get vendors to support the BSDs and Linux. Read on for more.

From: Brett Glass
Subject: FreeBSD at COMDEX
To: chat@FreeBSD.org

Just got back from COMDEX, where the response to FreeBSD was very, very different compared to previous years. Here are some random observations:

With few exceptions, all of the open source UNIX products and companies were relegated to a separate, "co-located" show: Linux Business Expo, in the Hilton. This had both good and bad effects. On the plus side, it gave open source a separate forum in which to strut its stuff (albeit with the Linux name hung on it). On the minus side, it segregated virtually all of the open source activity away from the mainstream. (Except for Linus, all of the keynote speakers for the Linux show were on a separate track and in smaller venues.) Companies which exhibited only in the Hilton didn't get as much attention as they would have on the main floor -- even if they had been crammed into one of the tiny "sheep stalls" which Microsoft uses to make ISVs seem small and insignificant. And those which had the financial wherewithal to exhibit in both places seemed unwilling to mention their open source activities on the main floor, where it was "Windows, Windows, Windows" all the way.

FreeBSD got a small, but not insignificant, amount of attention. Red Hat CEO Robert Young even mentioned it in his keynote -- a pleasant surprise.

Walnut Creek had a daemon "hostess" in the booth for the first time. ("You mean they haven't ALWAYS had one?" asked my wife, who was surprised that it hadn't been done before -- especially in Vegas. I suggested that a chorus line of female daemons -- remember the "Devil Girls" in Schmidt and Jones' classic musical "Celebration?" -- might be even more Vegas-like.)

Two fellows from the NetBSD project, including Charles Hannum, were at a booth elsewhere on the floor selling CDs. They didn't seem to be getting as much interest or recognition as they deserved, alas. The timing of the show was bad for the OpenBSD project, which is currently struggling like crazy to close a bunch of open issues so that it can ship Version 2.6. Perhaps this is why I saw no mention of OpenBSD on the show floor.

I noted that Digi was displaying some new serial hardware in the Red Hat booth, and asked them about BSD drivers. They said that they didn't have them, but "why don't you just port them from Linux?" (I tried to explain to them that the GPL, which is designed to monkey-wrench exactly such activities, precluded this; alas, they seemed not to understand the licensing issues. I plan to be in touch with them about getting "raw" technical specs, as I need a driver for a Digi 56K modem/channelized T1 board.)

The reps from Borland/Inprise -- whose booth was directly across from Walnut Creek's -- told me that they now had a Linux command-line compiler for Borland Pascal/Delphi. (This is a fantastic Pascal dialect which I'd love to use for UNIX projects. The GPLed "Free Pascal" simply can't compete in terms of code quality.) Unfortunately, despite the fact that recompiling and relinking a command-line compiler for BSD is nearly trivial, their PR people claimed that they weren't considering an implementation for FreeBSD. (This sounds like a company that's ripe for a bit of advocacy; there is NO reason why there should not be Delphi compilers for ALL of the BSDs.)

Hardware and software vendors on the main floors of COMDEX were, alas, focusing on Windows and NT. Few had driver support for any non-Microsoft operating system, and they seemed to be annoyed by the question -- as if they'd been asked quite a few times and didn't have a good answer. (Others denied ever having been asked for drivers for ANY other OS -- even Linux -- even though it's highly unlikely that this would be true.) I noted that the inkjet printer manufacturers were especially adamant about calling their printers "Windows printers," and claiming that it was impossible to run them from any other OS. Laptop vendors, when asked if their modems were "WinModems" (which I often call "lobotomodems" because they lack sufficient intelligence to work without MAJOR help from the host CPU), often couldn't provide an answer.

In general, the hardware vendors -- even more than the software vendors -- seemed to wish that all of this UNIX stuff would just disappear and leave them happily dependent upon Microsoft in a one-OS world.

The most extreme case of this of this phenomenon occurred when we wandered into the booth of a robotics vendor called Robix. We are working on a project for a client which will involve some robotics, and thought at first that this vendor's toolkit -- which contained a computer interface and enough servos and parts to build a complex manipulator -- might be just the thing. But when we inquired, we discovered that the included software, which ran the interface, was specific to -- you guessed it! -- Windows. Since "rolling your own" is the essence of robotics, we politely asked if we could obtain some sample code so we could adapt it to run under UNIX -- or, if not, the specifications for the interface so we could write something ourselves. We even offered to share the code we developed.

But instead of welcoming our interest, the owner of the company snapped in response: "We had enough trouble developing this for Windows, and we're not going to go through the sweat and tears to rewrite it for something else! Go away!" He scowled, turned his back and refused to talk to us further.

Our remark must have touched a nerve that had already been frayed by previous encounters at the show, and it was rather sad. We literally had our checkbook ready, but this one fellow was willing to throw away $500 of on-the-spot business (and that would just have been the initial order!) to avoid so much as thinking about supporting an alternative OS.

Another disturbing trend was that many of the embedded systems vendors seemed to be going with NT and failing to acknowledge its continued lack of fitness for mission critical applications. One vendor which had built a PBX around NT admitted, under duress, that to keep their system even semi-reliable they had to threaten to void the warranty if ANY other application was installed on the system. (I asked them whether they were concerned about the system blue-screening due to network activity, and told them so. The vendor seemed not to fathom the notion that NT could be crashed via a network. Duh.) Other companies had tape libraries and similar systems -- many of them likely to be mission-critical -- attached to NT boxes. Scary.

About the only exception I could find to this trend (at least on the main floor) was Maxtor. The company's MaxAttach dedicated file servers (a product line which they acquired when they bought Creative Design Solutions) have FreeBSD inside, and they're very proud of that. (They don't use Samba for SMB support; instead, they've written their own SMB server which seems fairly impressive. I didn't get all of the technical details, but their rep suggested that they may be doing some things in kernel space to increase performance.) Maxtor believes that FreeBSD will make their servers far more stable and reliable under load than Linux-based solutions such as the Cobalt RAQ.

All in all, it seems to me that FreeBSD, and BSD UNIX in general, need a LOT more promoting and a lot more vendor support -- on the main floor, not just in the Linux "ghetto." My personal approach, were I Walnut Creek, would have been to go for a booth on the main floor at the Sands and share a smaller booth with the NetBSD folks in the Linux pavilion. It's important that FreeBSD not preach only to the converted. It should not be seen as a "niche within a niche," but rather as moving toward the mainstream.

--Brett Glass

Several people submitted this, but Nate Williams was first. In his own words: "As head of the current FreeBSD/JDK porting development team it's been difficult to finish our JDK2 efforts due to lack of help from Sun. In order to try and make JDK2 on FreeBSD a reality, we are lobbying Sun using a RFE (Request For Enhancement) on the Java Developer network to demonstrate to them the number of people interested in seeing FreeBSD as a supported Java platform.". Read on if you're interested in seeing more complete Java support on FreeBSD.

Nate continues, "Please go to Sun Bug 4288745, and add your votes to ask Sun into allocating resources towards getting a native FreeBSD port of JDK2 (and JDK3, etc...) finished.

"Voting requires that you be registed on the Java Developer Connection, which is free.)

"This is good for open-source operating systems, and Java in general since FreeBSD is a great server platform used by many of the major internet portal sites (Yahoo, Hotmail), and would allow FreeBSD to compete as a Java server platform directly with less 'open' systems such as WinNT."

It's worth noting that any support Sun provide for a FreeBSD port should also be useful to both the NetBSD and OpenBSD Java teams as well, so we can all benefit from this work.

Several people submitted this, but Nate Williams was first. In his own words: "As head of the current FreeBSD/JDK porting development team it's been difficult to finish our JDK2 efforts due to lack of help from Sun. In order to try and make JDK2 on FreeBSD a reality, we are lobbying Sun using a RFE (Request For Enhancement) on the Java Developer network to demonstrate to them the number of people interested in seeing FreeBSD as a supported Java platform.". Read on if you're interested in seeing more complete Java support on FreeBSD.

Nate continues, "Please go to Sun Bug 4288745, and add your votes to ask Sun into allocating resources towards getting a native FreeBSD port of JDK2 (and JDK3, etc...) finished.

"Voting requires that you be registed on the Java Developer Connection, which is free.)

"This is good for open-source operating systems, and Java in general since FreeBSD is a great server platform used by many of the major internet portal sites (Yahoo, Hotmail), and would allow FreeBSD to compete as a Java server platform directly with less 'open' systems such as WinNT."

It's worth noting that any support Sun provide for a FreeBSD port should also be useful to both the NetBSD and OpenBSD Java teams as well, so we can all benefit from this work.

Bob Frankenberg was CEO of Novell in the early nineties, when Novell were marketing DR-DOS as a replacement for MS-DOS (DR-DOS is now the subject of a law suit between Caldera and Microsoft). In part of this CBS interview he explains why his new company, Encanto, is not using Microsoft software, and why they chose FreeBSD. Read on for a few notes.

There are a number of interesting things to take from this article. It's unsurprising that an ex-Novell CEO does not want to use MS software after the way Novell were treated by them, it is mildly surprising that he hasn't chosen a Novell, or other 'industry standard' solution.

Encanto's choice of FreeBSD over Linux is also interesting. Naturally, we all know that FreeBSD is the best choice (heh heh heh :-)), but Linux (or Solaris) would be the anti-MS knee jerk choice. Using FreeBSD suggests that they've actually investigated the different OS choices open to them, and chosen one on merit -- or that the first SA they hired preferred FreeBSD over Linux.

As ever, the media have got the licensing issues wrong. One of the key things about the BSD license is that you don't have to contribute enhancements back to the original codebase if you don't want to -- of course, that doesn't stop many companies from doing so anyway, because it's better business sense in the long run.

Having looked at the Encanto web site, and the products they're selling, the license may very well be the key issue. They sell network appliances -- plug and play web servers, that sort of thing, and the ability to make proprietry changes to the code base to support their product (and enhance their product's value) without having to disclose those changes is probably key to their business plan.

This is quite similar to the approach taken by Whistle and their Interjet devices. Whistle have been the classic example of a company which has contributed code back, even though the license doesn't force them to -- typically 6 to 12 months after they've deployed it in their product, and reaped the commercial benefit. This lets them recoup their development costs plus profit, and lets the rest of the community benefit from (and extend and support) the code later on.

Finally, CBS's phrase, "so-called open-source software" should get them a stiff letter from ESR...

newt writes "The Australian's Technology section is carrying a story from Compaq which claims that 50% of Compaq server customers are using Linux. As a result of increasing use, Compaq is beefing up its Linux support infrastructure and unveiling new Linux service offerings similar to the support offered for "mainstream" operating systems. "

Pedro Vazquez wrote in point out that Compaq's test drive programme now supports FreeBSD on Alpha and x86 platforms. The Alpha server is a 500MHz EV5.6 (21164) system, the x86 server is a Dual 450MHz box (no mention of processor, probably a PII). You have to register for an account, and then you can go and play. Compaq x86 boxes used to be particularly hostile when installing FreeBSD, so this is a very welcome development.

There've been a bunch of FreeBSD Con submissions since the Conference started. kken notes that sendmail.net have an early report from the conference. Upside also talk about the conference, concentrating on FreeBSD's position re: Linux (thanks to wozz for that). On the pictures front, we have pics from Bill Fumerola and Gianmarco Giovannelli (here's a much faster mirror for those). Enjoy.

There've been a bunch of FreeBSD Con submissions since the Conference started. kken notes that sendmail.net have an early report from the conference. Upside also talk about the conference, concentrating on FreeBSD's position re: Linux (thanks to wozz for that). On the pictures front, we have pics from Bill Fumerola and Gianmarco Giovannelli (here's a much faster mirror for those). Enjoy.

Bill Swingle writes "The final speaker schedule for the upcoming FreeBSDCon has been announced. Highlights include, Kirk McKusick's BSD Internals tutorial, and keynotes from both Brian Behlendorf of the Apache Project and Jeremey Allison from the Samba Project. There are all kinds of fun events planned for the conference, including a free (for attendees) beer bash. This should be one killer conference! " Read on for more. CT : This is the first article in our new BSD Section maintained by Nik. Enjoy.

There are also speakers from Apple, talking about FreeBSD's contribution to Darwin, Jonathan Bresler talking about his experiences with spam fighting as the FreeBSD Postmaster, and Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino of the KAME group, talking about IPv6 and IPSec, to name just a few more (modesty forbids me mentioning my own presentation at the conference, obviously).

Cale Pearce was the first to write in with the news that FreeBSD 3.3 has been released, along with some release notes. As always, please use a mirror. Lots of new drivers, USB updates and other goodies included.

Cale Pearce was the first to write in with the news that FreeBSD 3.3 has been released, along with some release notes. As always, please use a mirror. Lots of new drivers, USB updates and other goodies included.

Woody writes "There is tons of stuff happening on the BSD front. The NetBSD Foundation is scheduled to release version 1.4 of their multi-platform OS tomorrow, May 12. The OpenBSD group is scheduled to release version 2.5 of their super-secure multi-platform OS on May 19. Finally, those boys over at FreeBSD are scheduled to release version 3.2 of their i386 optimized OS on or around May 15. Lots of rumblings in the BSD world! "

chris sent in a link to this story which reports on FreeBSD being used on 32 dual-processor machines to render special effects for The Matrix. With 32 dual-processor machines, I doubt there's much that they couldn't render.

Jason C. Wells writes "FreeBSD, Inc. has released FreeBSD 3.1. Please read the release notes. You can install FreeBSD 3.1 by following the instructions. Have fun with it! "

Jason C. Wells writes "FreeBSD, Inc. has released FreeBSD 3.1. Please read the release notes. You can install FreeBSD 3.1 by following the instructions. Have fun with it! "

nikc writes "The December 17th issue of LinuxWorld features an excellent article about FreeBSD. It's refreshingly free from hype and unsubstantiated claims often made by supporters of both systems, and well worth reading. "

Eivind Eklund wrote in to say FreeBSD 2.2.8 has been released. See the announcment here. Some of the important changes include support for IDE drives larger than 8GB, a 3c905B driver, Linux emulation support improvement, as well as all BugTraq advisories against 2.2.7.

Eivind Eklund wrote in to say FreeBSD 2.2.8 has been released. See the announcment here. Some of the important changes include support for IDE drives larger than 8GB, a 3c905B driver, Linux emulation support improvement, as well as all BugTraq advisories against 2.2.7.

KeLp writes "The November issue of Daemon News just hit the wire. All can take a check it out at www.daemonnews.org Also the latest issue of the FreeBSD Quick NewsLetter it out there. Very good stuff! "

Derek D Owens was the first to write in and tell us that FreeBSD 3.0-Release is appearing on the FreeBSD main ftp site , all you BSD boys and girls can rejoice, download and have at it.

Jordan K. Hubbard of the FreeBSD project wrote in with a statement regarding the recent entry of FreeBSD in to the world of beta. Read on if you're interested. Highlights include SMP, and a rewritten SCSI CAM subsystem, and perl5 ("perl4 is dead! long live perl4!"). FreeBSD's 3.0-CURRENT branch has just entered BETA status for the upcoming 3.0-RELEASE on October 15th. 3.0 is a major milestone for the FreeBSD project in that it incorporates many new features and improvements over 2.2.x. This includes a complete switch to ELF with backwards-compatibility for all older a.out libraries and executables (so ISVs need not worry), VM86 support (for accessing the PC BIOS from user/kernel mode), an in-kernel module linker, a completeley new CAM (Common Access Method) SCSI subsystem, a fully-integrated Perl5 development environment (perl4 is dead! long live perl4! :) and many other features. Early binary release snapshots will be made available at ftp://current.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ as usual, starting in a day or two.

He also said he'd be shot if he didn't include ATM networking and SMP =)

Mats Rynge wrote in to tell us that he has created a new web site at linuxprogramming.com. It's currently a links list of programming stuff, and Mats is seeking feedback on what to do with it. Next Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote in to announe the premiere of The Daemon News, a zine dedicated to all the various BSD variations out there. Very excellent.

Micah Mayo writes "The current branch of the FreeBSD source tree switched from a.out to the ELF binary system around midnight August 30th. Hopefully the transition wont be as horrid as the linux transition was."

luqin wrote in with the news: FreeBSD 2.2.7 is available via CVSup. He says a cvsup followed by a make world should bring you up to date. It should be available from Walnut Creek CDROM soon. Now, if only those CheapBytes CDs were bootable...

Bart Smit writes "jkh just sent out an announcement of a contest meant to make people think about making FreeBSD easier to use and more attractive 'out of the box'. See the contest page. There's some cool prizes (how about a 12Gb disk...). "

Ashley writes "A year after issue one came out, issue two of this fine "quarterly" publication has landed at the FreeBSD ftp server. For those of us who subscribed for a paper copy it should be arriving in the mail anytime soon. Regardless of whether you use FreeBSD it makes an interesting read. It can be downloaded from here"

The FreeBSD project has announced efforts to port Mozilla to FreeBSD. A CVS repository, a mailing list, as well as other "centralized resources" will be made available.
An article at news.com talks about Troll's recent work on QtScape. Good press for all.

The FreeBSD project has announced efforts to port Mozilla to FreeBSD. A CVS repository, a mailing list, as well as other "centralized resources" will be made available.
An article at news.com talks about Troll's recent work on QtScape. Good press for all.

The FreeBSD Project, Inc. released FreeBSD 2.2.6 to the world. The release may be downloaded or purchased on CD from Pacific Creek CDROM shortly. Definately worth a look- a rock-solid and speedy OS.

The FreeBSD Project, Inc. released FreeBSD 2.2.6 to the world. The release may be downloaded or purchased on CD from Pacific Creek CDROM shortly. Definately worth a look- a rock-solid and speedy OS.