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Eh? I'm running Wikimedia 1.6.3 with PHP 5.1.4 and eAccelerator 0.9.5.b2 http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/www/ea ccelerator/ ...

OH I see.. I'm using a version that works fine with PHP 5.1+. Fairly quick on this quad-550Mhz Dell.

The only stupid part is updating from PHP 5.1.2 required a recompile of eAccelerator.

# cd /usr/src
# make buildworld
# make buildkernel
# make installkernel
# reboot

You mean like these?

It should be noted that the 'horns' are for directional wireless (and also cover USB ports when not in use) - remember that if you want to mock them!

One of the flaws of the softupdates approach was always in the code complexity. There is a definite feeling within the developer community that softupdates will be jettisoned soon, to catch the signs of this google for bad_dir panics or see http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=93942 or http://people.freebsd.org/~pho/baddir.html

You may also notice in the release engineering notes for 6.1 several references to UFS deadlocks. All of these were long latent softupdate bugs, mistakes in the dependency tracking, etc, etc. It was quite the rollcoaster as those fixes when in, often followed by several other "no still not right" commits.

You are pointing to specific examples of flawed implementation, in a system which is coming to the end of some huge fundamental changes (FreeBSD) and then proclaiming that the flaws are in softupdates. I don't think that is the case.

Ultimately though this sliver of a benefit from UFS cannot warrant staying with something far outmoded by proven better methods (journaling) and large disks.

In the last 7 years, I've lost data from Ext2, Ext3 and Reiser, yet never lost data from UFS+softdep. Journaling and softupdates do not prevent data from being lost, they prevent filesystems from falling into an inconsistent state. Can you show us this proof that journaling is better?

Incidentially, it is historically wrong to call "softupdates" a response to journaling. Softupdates predates wide-spread acceptance of journaling filesystems and in its heyday enjoyed better performance (no longer).

Yes they are both a response to the same problem.

One of the flaws of the softupdates approach was always in the code complexity. There is a definite feeling within the developer community that softupdates will be jettisoned soon, to catch the signs of this google for bad_dir panics or see http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=93942 or http://people.freebsd.org/~pho/baddir.html

You may also notice in the release engineering notes for 6.1 several references to UFS deadlocks. All of these were long latent softupdate bugs, mistakes in the dependency tracking, etc, etc. It was quite the rollcoaster as those fixes when in, often followed by several other "no still not right" commits.

You are pointing to specific examples of flawed implementation, in a system which is coming to the end of some huge fundamental changes (FreeBSD) and then proclaiming that the flaws are in softupdates. I don't think that is the case.

Ultimately though this sliver of a benefit from UFS cannot warrant staying with something far outmoded by proven better methods (journaling) and large disks.

In the last 7 years, I've lost data from Ext2, Ext3 and Reiser, yet never lost data from UFS+softdep. Journaling and softupdates do not prevent data from being lost, they prevent filesystems from falling into an inconsistent state. Can you show us this proof that journaling is better?

Incidentially, it is historically wrong to call "softupdates" a response to journaling. Softupdates predates wide-spread acceptance of journaling filesystems and in its heyday enjoyed better performance (no longer).

Yes they are both a response to the same problem.

I remember the famous quip:-

"FreeBSD is what you get when a group of UNIX hackers sit down to write a port of UNIX for the PC. Linux is what happens when a group of PC hackers sit down and write a UNIX clone for the PC."

For starters, read this. Linux isn't simply decentralised; it's unplanned. There's a very large difference. (Debian users/developers, I acknowledge you as an exception, here)

Secondly, go and get a copy of bsd.port.mk, read it and some sample makefiles. Compare this with rpm, and some of the spec file examples you can find from Mandrake and a few of the other distributions that use it. Note your conclusions.

It also needs to be pointed out that lack of comparitive lack of hardware support should not be considered an indictment of an operating system, in itself. Unfortunately, hardware support exists as part of a vicious cycle; if more people use the system, more hardware will become supported because of the increased demand. Linux has experienced its' own problems in this regard.

Linux is more popular because:-
a) If anything, FreeBSD's developers are actually *more* strongly technically oriented, and hence more obscure. I've repeatedly read the claims about Theo de Raadt being difficult to work with, but my own theory on that is simply that Theo is possibly someone who genuinely is unusually intellectually gifted, and hence finds himself becoming deeply frustrated at times when he is unable to communicate his ideas to others in a manner that they can understand. I've considered it as tragic as anyone else when UNIX users in general behave in a manner which suggests that they feel superior to their fellow man; however, the reality is that this superiority complex is genuinely justified in most cases.

b) Richard Stallman has, I believe, expended a large amount of effort to discredit the BSD license and discourage its' use as thoroughly as possible.

c) Yes, the BSD license *is* incompatible with corporate greed. Might we be honest here however and admit that that is more an indictment of corporate moral degeneracy than it is the BSD license? The other thing is...I suspect that the only reason why the BSD license even exists as such at all is actually because other licenses do. In other words, originally there existed a scenario where in software authors' minds, software being devoid of ownership was something known/thought of at an instinctive or barely conscious level. If you look at bsd.port.mk, Jordan Hubbard's statement there is that the file is in the public domain. Not "free as in freedom." Just plain free, in every possible sense of the word, all at once. In Richard Stallman's case, the definition of freedom has become perverted and distorted, and looking at the BSD and some of the Creative Commons license can show us why that is so.

I remember reading another quote:-
"Freedom is the only law that genius knows."

It's also the only law that true genius needs. What we now call FOSS originally came from a place where some abnormally intelligent, deeply spiritual people wrote and saw software as simply one part of an entire world that they wanted to live in; a world where it is understood instinctively that humanity is an intimately connected, genetically related group, and that each additional human being who exists has priceless value as a means of that group being able to express itself in a unique and previously entirely undiscovered way.

Contrast that to the type of vision that groups like Microsoft, WIPO and the RIAA have, and you might begin to understand why the BSD license hasn't become as popular. It is surprising that they tolerate even the GPL, watered down though it is.

That is (good) news to me. Thanks for the link (and no thanks for assuming trollishness, although it's understandable on /., particularly relating to BSD).

No, I didn't bother to look for that news, because I tried using FBSD 6.0 on my laptop as a desktop OS a few months ago, and the behavior I described was the behavior I saw. News about Java on FBSD being as slow to trickle out as it is -- since a Sun-official JRE and JDK release on FBSD was originally negotiated waaay back in Dec. 2001, there really hasn't been any major news regarding the Sun-FreeBSD Foundation's relationship until the news you cited -- I have no reason to assume based on past history that Java on FBSD would actually have come out with a native binary distribution between the last time I used it and this /. article's posting. And I have about a zillion more important and useful things to do with my limited free time than spend it watching the FBSD Project's every move (and unfortunately, my job does not entail working on FBSD in any way).

At least you're less-reactionary than the other frothing-at-the-mouth person who replied...

How is the hardware support?

Why don't you check for yourself?

NVidia releases native FreeBSD x86 drivers (no amd64 unfortunately), ATI support blows (what else is new :), 'though a freebsd port of the ATI linux driver is being written.

I realize this article is about the ports tree, but FreeBSD's main source *has* been moving at a blistering rate of development the past few years. Recently there was an article about linux 2.6 getting buggier - and unfortunately the same is true of FreeBSD 5.x and 6.x ... Some things to consider:

* 6.x came out shockingly fast after 5.x
* 4.x was orphaned correspondingly quickly (despite being arguably the only stable freebsd branch left)
* vinum (software raid) support, among other things, was broken thanks to the introduction of geom around 5.1, and gvinum is finally beginning to approach stability as of 6.1
* The new scheduler, ULE, was introduced in one 5.x release and then abandoned when it proved to be completely unstable.
* As a reaction, one of the lead developers forked dragonflybsd off of the last truly stable freebsd release, the 4.x branch. Others have just given up.
* Bugfixes are getting left on the floor in favor of adding features ( just look at a relatively old release such as freebsd 5.3's TODO list: http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.3R/todo.html - note that most of these problems are *still* not fixed in 6.1 )

People choose the BSD's for stability - or at least, they used to. FreeBSD has been going down a features at all cost route in some kind of effort to play catchup with their perceived rival linux for some time. In doing so, it is losing what makes it unique, and it needs to stop, or else people will abandon FreeBSD for other BSDs, linux (which is now more stable IMO), and even mac os.

-DH

Ye Flippin' Gods.

Not that one again. Dude, 2002 called, they want their post back.

nfs defaults to udp

On some OSes. On others, it doesn't; see, for example, the Solaris 9 mount_nfs man page:

proto=_netid_
_netid_ is a value of network_id field from entry in the /etc/netconfig file. By default, the transport protocol used for the NFS mount is the first available connection oriented transport supported on both the client and the server. If no connection oriented transport is found, then the first available connectionless transport is used. This default behavior can be overridden with the proto=_netid_ option.

The Solaris 10 man page says much the same thing, but it explicitly indicates that this means "TCP first, then UDP if TCP isn't supported", and also mentions RDMA.

Why add the overhead and problems (see below) of tcp to an nfs mount?

Because the first problem they mention:

The disadvantage of using TCP is that it is not a stateless protocol like UDP. If your server crashes in the middle of a packet transmission, the client will hang and any shares will need to be unmounted and remounted.

is an implementation problem with the version of Linux's NFS client being described, not a problem of TCP. That paragraph can be replaced by "Linux's NFS-over-TCP client implementation, as of the writing of this document, is incomplete". A complete NFS-over-TCP cient implementation will, if the server crashes in the middle of a packet retransmission, attempt to open a new connection and, if that succeeds, will retransmit any requests to which it hadn't gotten any replies. An implementation that does that will not hang (if the server comes back) and will not require any unmounting and remounting of NFS mounts. The Solaris implementation is complete in that regard, as are, I suspect, most if not all of the Solaris-derived ones (such as commercial UN*Xes that have licensed Sun's implementation); I suspect the BSD implementations are complete in that regard as well.

The other problem listed is

The overhead incurred by the TCP protocol will result in somewhat slower performance than UDP under ideal network conditions, but the cost is not severe, and is often not noticable without careful measurement.

but, as they note, "the cost is not severe", and just because you happen to have ideal network conditions at time T, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll have them at time T + delta T.

Poul-Henning Kamp got 200.000 DDK (Danish kroner) which is about 33.000 US$.

The settlement states that Poul-Henning Kamp must not talk about the history of problems which the D-Link routers caused. But He tells danish press that any future problemes causes by D-link equiptment will be posted around the net ;-). This information is from the danish version of computerworld online at http://www.computerworld.dk/

His homepage is http://people.freebsd.org/~phk/

For those in america: Denmark is not the capital of sweden ;-)

If you check the original artical,

D-Link routers do not recognize the kill request, and they re-request very quickly. So yes, he configured the NTP server correctly, AND he posted restrictions on the NTP site correctly, AND D-Link said we don't care.

You do need to "register" with Sun to get the source, but same goes even for New York Times... The registration is free.

"eventually"

No, this is going to happen extremely soon. One of the flaws of the softupdates approach was always in the code complexity. There is a definite feeling within the developer community that softupdates will be jettisoned soon, to catch the signs of this google for bad_dir panics or see http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=93942 or http://people.freebsd.org/~pho/baddir.html

You may also notice in the release engineering notes for 6.1 several references to UFS deadlocks. All of these were long latent softupdate bugs, mistakes in the dependency tracking, etc, etc. It was quite the rollcoaster as those fixes when in, often followed by several other "no still not right" commits.

Softupdate's days are numbered. The one clear advantage that UFS has these days is being extremely robust in the presence of disk errors. The same cannot be said of ReiserFS or XFS wherein the on-disk data-structures are so optimized the filesystem is prone to fall-over rapidly when on a degrading disk. Ultimately though this sliver of a benefit from UFS cannot warrant staying with something far outmoded by proven better methods (journaling) and large disks.

Incidentially, it is historically wrong to call "softupdates" a response to journaling. Softupdates predates wide-spread acceptance of journaling filesystems and in its heyday enjoyed better performance (no longer).

"eventually"

No, this is going to happen extremely soon. One of the flaws of the softupdates approach was always in the code complexity. There is a definite feeling within the developer community that softupdates will be jettisoned soon, to catch the signs of this google for bad_dir panics or see http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=93942 or http://people.freebsd.org/~pho/baddir.html

You may also notice in the release engineering notes for 6.1 several references to UFS deadlocks. All of these were long latent softupdate bugs, mistakes in the dependency tracking, etc, etc. It was quite the rollcoaster as those fixes when in, often followed by several other "no still not right" commits.

Softupdate's days are numbered. The one clear advantage that UFS has these days is being extremely robust in the presence of disk errors. The same cannot be said of ReiserFS or XFS wherein the on-disk data-structures are so optimized the filesystem is prone to fall-over rapidly when on a degrading disk. Ultimately though this sliver of a benefit from UFS cannot warrant staying with something far outmoded by proven better methods (journaling) and large disks.

Incidentially, it is historically wrong to call "softupdates" a response to journaling. Softupdates predates wide-spread acceptance of journaling filesystems and in its heyday enjoyed better performance (no longer).

Building a High-performance Computing Cluster Using FreeBSD
Brooks Davis, Michael AuYeung, Gary Green, Craig Lee
The Aerospace Corporation
El Segundo, CA
{brooks,lee,mauyeung} at aero.org, Gary.B.Green at notes.aero.org
© 2003 The Aerospace Corporation
Presented at BSDCon 2003, September 8-12 2003.

http://people.freebsd.org/~brooks/papers/bsdcon200 3/

Grid Computing with FreeBSD
Brooks Davis
The Aerospace Corporation
El Segundo, CA
{brooks,lee} at aero.org
© 2004 The Aerospace Corporation
Presented at the UseBSD SIG of the 2004 USENIX Annual Technical Conference, June 27 - July 2, 2004, Boston, MA.

http://people.freebsd.org/~brooks/papers/usebsd200 4/

Building a High-performance Computing Cluster Using FreeBSD
Brooks Davis, Michael AuYeung, Gary Green, Craig Lee
The Aerospace Corporation
El Segundo, CA
{brooks,lee,mauyeung} at aero.org, Gary.B.Green at notes.aero.org
© 2003 The Aerospace Corporation
Presented at BSDCon 2003, September 8-12 2003.

http://people.freebsd.org/~brooks/papers/bsdcon200 3/

Grid Computing with FreeBSD
Brooks Davis
The Aerospace Corporation
El Segundo, CA
{brooks,lee} at aero.org
© 2004 The Aerospace Corporation
Presented at the UseBSD SIG of the 2004 USENIX Annual Technical Conference, June 27 - July 2, 2004, Boston, MA.

http://people.freebsd.org/~brooks/papers/usebsd200 4/

# xorgcfg -textmode

# Xorg -config xorg.conf.new

# Xorg -configure

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

xorgcfg -textmode

The problem is that you are ignoring the actual sources of information that could have made your attempt go much more smoothly and more than likely work successfully. Simply saying "It didn't work for me, even thought i don't know much about the OS, so I will tell EVERYONE I KNOW AND DON'T KNOW that FREEBSD IS A HORRIBLE SOLUTION FOR SATA SOFTWARE RAID! PERIOD!" is just as insecure and arrogant (even though your example uses an onboard hardware solution that probably has hardare RAID-5 that FreeBSD would see as a disk array and create a device called ar0 that looks, to you, like a single disk device).

Not only is it arrogant and insecure, but it's irresponsible and inacurrate. I mean, did you research Vinnum or GEOM? In this case, you'd want to go with vinum.

And, again, your X problem is ridiculous. I have never seen a modern computer out there that was unable to get an X session up and running in FreeBSD, but WAS able to get one running in Linux. X IS THE SAME PROGRAM, WITH THE SAME HARDWARE SUPPORT IN BOTH OPERATING SYSTEMS! THERE IS NO EFFECTIVE DIFFERENCE! That point there makes me call bullshit on this story.

The problem is that you are ignoring the actual sources of information that could have made your attempt go much more smoothly and more than likely work successfully. Simply saying "It didn't work for me, even thought i don't know much about the OS, so I will tell EVERYONE I KNOW AND DON'T KNOW that FREEBSD IS A HORRIBLE SOLUTION FOR SATA SOFTWARE RAID! PERIOD!" is just as insecure and arrogant (even though your example uses an onboard hardware solution that probably has hardare RAID-5 that FreeBSD would see as a disk array and create a device called ar0 that looks, to you, like a single disk device).

Not only is it arrogant and insecure, but it's irresponsible and inacurrate. I mean, did you research Vinnum or GEOM? In this case, you'd want to go with vinum.

And, again, your X problem is ridiculous. I have never seen a modern computer out there that was unable to get an X session up and running in FreeBSD, but WAS able to get one running in Linux. X IS THE SAME PROGRAM, WITH THE SAME HARDWARE SUPPORT IN BOTH OPERATING SYSTEMS! THERE IS NO EFFECTIVE DIFFERENCE! That point there makes me call bullshit on this story.

A good reason would be to learn more about the various other unices out there and the various ways things are done amongst kernels and distros. Other than that, and the really cool ports system, I can't see it being worth the hassle for the typical home user.

I would not deter you from trying, and you might end up loving it, but it's not just another linux distro.

FreeBSD excels not on the single user systems but, in my opinion, where you have multiple users or services running on the same piece of hardware. If you're hosting virtual domains for people and want to make sure that one of your users doesn't disturb things for another, it's great. It's things like login.conf(5) that just come with the OS. I haven't personally run any linux boxen in about 5 years (maybe more) since I started playing with FreeBSD; but some years ago, providing similar functionality in linux was not trivial. It's a stable, feature-filled OS. I'd even suggest it for learning on - like learning to drive on a manual transmission vehicle w/o power steering vs. an automatic. It's great but takes some setting up and might frusturate faster than most linux distros. More powerful, and more knobs. More like pro-audio equipment vs. a typical home-audio component CD player. Less flash, more business.

"The Power to Serve" is the tagline for this excellent OS. That's what it does best - serve - not hold you by the hand. If you're not interested in getting dirt under your fingernails and instead want point-and clicky interfaces to system administrative functions, do look elsewhere. (Spoken to other readers, not necessarily yourself.)

Do not mess with this OS without looking to the FreeBSD Handbook. A quick read will give you a feel of the power and it's something you should have close at hand when starting to play with it for the first time.

Give it a try but be ready for a time investment to get it like you want. Maybe put it on a "closet machine" and let it serve files or web for you so you can take down your regular box for dual-booting, running xine, or the reboots you're sure to have more often with linux than the beastie :)

It's a great platform, but doesn't come pre-configured.

A good reason would be to learn more about the various other unices out there and the various ways things are done amongst kernels and distros. Other than that, and the really cool ports system, I can't see it being worth the hassle for the typical home user.

I would not deter you from trying, and you might end up loving it, but it's not just another linux distro.

FreeBSD excels not on the single user systems but, in my opinion, where you have multiple users or services running on the same piece of hardware. If you're hosting virtual domains for people and want to make sure that one of your users doesn't disturb things for another, it's great. It's things like login.conf(5) that just come with the OS. I haven't personally run any linux boxen in about 5 years (maybe more) since I started playing with FreeBSD; but some years ago, providing similar functionality in linux was not trivial. It's a stable, feature-filled OS. I'd even suggest it for learning on - like learning to drive on a manual transmission vehicle w/o power steering vs. an automatic. It's great but takes some setting up and might frusturate faster than most linux distros. More powerful, and more knobs. More like pro-audio equipment vs. a typical home-audio component CD player. Less flash, more business.

"The Power to Serve" is the tagline for this excellent OS. That's what it does best - serve - not hold you by the hand. If you're not interested in getting dirt under your fingernails and instead want point-and clicky interfaces to system administrative functions, do look elsewhere. (Spoken to other readers, not necessarily yourself.)

Do not mess with this OS without looking to the FreeBSD Handbook. A quick read will give you a feel of the power and it's something you should have close at hand when starting to play with it for the first time.

Give it a try but be ready for a time investment to get it like you want. Maybe put it on a "closet machine" and let it serve files or web for you so you can take down your regular box for dual-booting, running xine, or the reboots you're sure to have more often with linux than the beastie :)

It's a great platform, but doesn't come pre-configured.

A good reason would be to learn more about the various other unices out there and the various ways things are done amongst kernels and distros. Other than that, and the really cool ports system, I can't see it being worth the hassle for the typical home user.

I would not deter you from trying, and you might end up loving it, but it's not just another linux distro.

FreeBSD excels not on the single user systems but, in my opinion, where you have multiple users or services running on the same piece of hardware. If you're hosting virtual domains for people and want to make sure that one of your users doesn't disturb things for another, it's great. It's things like login.conf(5) that just come with the OS. I haven't personally run any linux boxen in about 5 years (maybe more) since I started playing with FreeBSD; but some years ago, providing similar functionality in linux was not trivial. It's a stable, feature-filled OS. I'd even suggest it for learning on - like learning to drive on a manual transmission vehicle w/o power steering vs. an automatic. It's great but takes some setting up and might frusturate faster than most linux distros. More powerful, and more knobs. More like pro-audio equipment vs. a typical home-audio component CD player. Less flash, more business.

"The Power to Serve" is the tagline for this excellent OS. That's what it does best - serve - not hold you by the hand. If you're not interested in getting dirt under your fingernails and instead want point-and clicky interfaces to system administrative functions, do look elsewhere. (Spoken to other readers, not necessarily yourself.)

Do not mess with this OS without looking to the FreeBSD Handbook. A quick read will give you a feel of the power and it's something you should have close at hand when starting to play with it for the first time.

Give it a try but be ready for a time investment to get it like you want. Maybe put it on a "closet machine" and let it serve files or web for you so you can take down your regular box for dual-booting, running xine, or the reboots you're sure to have more often with linux than the beastie :)

It's a great platform, but doesn't come pre-configured.

Interesting. When i first set up my SATA-RAIDable box, i was a big Gentoo fan and a big FreeBSD fan. I first tried to install gentoo on it, but had nothing but headaches. I wanted to have the entire system, all paritions, striping, which means the installer had to detect both drives as identical and RAIDable. Gentoo didn't do that. So i grabbed my FreeBSD install CD (it was 5.x at the time), fired that puppy up. In the dmesg output on boot i noticed that it found both my SATA drives, created an arX device (the device used for disk arrays), and i was able to partition and install the OS across both the drives as if they were one without any problems at all. Gentoo was not this simple of a process, so it lost out to FreeBSD.

Differing experiences, eh? But I guess mine was hardware raid, afterall, and that is a difference for sure. Though, I have software raid setup on my FreeBSD file server, which was extremely easy after reading this page. I guess if you don't know where to look, things are difficult? Good thing all the FreeBSD documentation is centralized and easy to browse, eh?

I guess it also helps that i'm well-versed in ports. Though, getting X up and running in FreeBSD is EXACTLY THE SAME (not similar, EXACTLY THE SAME -THEY ARE THE SAME SET OF PROGRAMS!) as it is in Gentoo, after you get X installed. The process there is pretty similar, though.

Besure to check out http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/h andbook/makeworld.html on how to rebuild world. No need to reinstall when you can rebuild the OS yourself.

http://www.freebsd.org/ports/parallel.html

FreeBSD has journaling ufs2 in the works:
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current /2005-December/059079.html

Scott Long also touches on the subject in a interview he did for the bsdtalk podcast show:
http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/2006/02/bsdtalk017-int erview-with-freebsd.html

This is probably one of the most absurd and ill-informed posts I've read in a while.

I tried in vain to setup FreeBSD 6.0 as a SATA software raid machine. I was using a more recent motherboard with graphics, network and SATA integrated on-board. I think they are all VIA chipsets. I eventually hit the eject on FreeBSD as I couldn't even get X up and running.

I bought a new motherboard without thinking too much about what I was buying and tried to install an operating system about which I knew just as little. Instead of taking the opportunity to make up for my obvious deficiencies, I quit when I realised my approach wouldn't work, but made a mental note to tell everyone about it when I had the chance.

I then tried Debian. All-in-all it was another less than positive experience. Both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel versions of Sarge had problems with my hardware.

I popped in another CD and see what would happen, hoping that doing the same thing again would yield different results. It didn't.

I decided to explore Gentoo.

Despite, the fact that some people consider doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a mark of insanity, I popped in yet another CD

Its working great with SATA and EVMS.

I was surprised that it worked.

It did require some source level tweaks

Well, it didn't really work, but someone told what I should be doing.

but part of the coolness I found with Gentoo is the very active user/support community and the tons of HowTos and guides.

Instead of visiting the FreeBSD website, where I could have found that FreeBSD offers a bewildering collection of well-written documentation in almost every imaginable format, I decided that The Handbook,
the Books and Articles Online section, Publications, Web Resources, A Section For Newbies or The Documentation Project, or reading the documentation in /usr/share/doc, manpages (also available online, or subscribing to the mailing list or reading its online archives, or the newsgroups, didn't fit with the way I do things. Instead, I found some forum using Google's I'm Feeling Lucky that has little or nothing to do with FreeBSD but is definitely better than all those places I didn't visit.

Unless they've made a quantum leap in improvements, FreeBSD would NOT be my choice for a SATA raid server.

I firmly believe my anecdotal experience qualifies me to offer non-sequitors with hyperbole but without embarassment.

This is probably one of the most absurd and ill-informed posts I've read in a while.

I tried in vain to setup FreeBSD 6.0 as a SATA software raid machine. I was using a more recent motherboard with graphics, network and SATA integrated on-board. I think they are all VIA chipsets. I eventually hit the eject on FreeBSD as I couldn't even get X up and running.

I bought a new motherboard without thinking too much about what I was buying and tried to install an operating system about which I knew just as little. Instead of taking the opportunity to make up for my obvious deficiencies, I quit when I realised my approach wouldn't work, but made a mental note to tell everyone about it when I had the chance.

I then tried Debian. All-in-all it was another less than positive experience. Both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel versions of Sarge had problems with my hardware.

I popped in another CD and see what would happen, hoping that doing the same thing again would yield different results. It didn't.

I decided to explore Gentoo.

Despite, the fact that some people consider doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a mark of insanity, I popped in yet another CD

Its working great with SATA and EVMS.

I was surprised that it worked.

It did require some source level tweaks

Well, it didn't really work, but someone told what I should be doing.

but part of the coolness I found with Gentoo is the very active user/support community and the tons of HowTos and guides.

Instead of visiting the FreeBSD website, where I could have found that FreeBSD offers a bewildering collection of well-written documentation in almost every imaginable format, I decided that The Handbook,
the Books and Articles Online section, Publications, Web Resources, A Section For Newbies or The Documentation Project, or reading the documentation in /usr/share/doc, manpages (also available online, or subscribing to the mailing list or reading its online archives, or the newsgroups, didn't fit with the way I do things. Instead, I found some forum using Google's I'm Feeling Lucky that has little or nothing to do with FreeBSD but is definitely better than all those places I didn't visit.

Unless they've made a quantum leap in improvements, FreeBSD would NOT be my choice for a SATA raid server.

I firmly believe my anecdotal experience qualifies me to offer non-sequitors with hyperbole but without embarassment.

This is probably one of the most absurd and ill-informed posts I've read in a while.

I tried in vain to setup FreeBSD 6.0 as a SATA software raid machine. I was using a more recent motherboard with graphics, network and SATA integrated on-board. I think they are all VIA chipsets. I eventually hit the eject on FreeBSD as I couldn't even get X up and running.

I bought a new motherboard without thinking too much about what I was buying and tried to install an operating system about which I knew just as little. Instead of taking the opportunity to make up for my obvious deficiencies, I quit when I realised my approach wouldn't work, but made a mental note to tell everyone about it when I had the chance.

I then tried Debian. All-in-all it was another less than positive experience. Both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel versions of Sarge had problems with my hardware.

I popped in another CD and see what would happen, hoping that doing the same thing again would yield different results. It didn't.

I decided to explore Gentoo.

Despite, the fact that some people consider doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a mark of insanity, I popped in yet another CD

Its working great with SATA and EVMS.

I was surprised that it worked.

It did require some source level tweaks

Well, it didn't really work, but someone told what I should be doing.

but part of the coolness I found with Gentoo is the very active user/support community and the tons of HowTos and guides.

Instead of visiting the FreeBSD website, where I could have found that FreeBSD offers a bewildering collection of well-written documentation in almost every imaginable format, I decided that The Handbook,
the Books and Articles Online section, Publications, Web Resources, A Section For Newbies or The Documentation Project, or reading the documentation in /usr/share/doc, manpages (also available online, or subscribing to the mailing list or reading its online archives, or the newsgroups, didn't fit with the way I do things. Instead, I found some forum using Google's I'm Feeling Lucky that has little or nothing to do with FreeBSD but is definitely better than all those places I didn't visit.

Unless they've made a quantum leap in improvements, FreeBSD would NOT be my choice for a SATA raid server.

I firmly believe my anecdotal experience qualifies me to offer non-sequitors with hyperbole but without embarassment.

This is probably one of the most absurd and ill-informed posts I've read in a while.

I tried in vain to setup FreeBSD 6.0 as a SATA software raid machine. I was using a more recent motherboard with graphics, network and SATA integrated on-board. I think they are all VIA chipsets. I eventually hit the eject on FreeBSD as I couldn't even get X up and running.

I bought a new motherboard without thinking too much about what I was buying and tried to install an operating system about which I knew just as little. Instead of taking the opportunity to make up for my obvious deficiencies, I quit when I realised my approach wouldn't work, but made a mental note to tell everyone about it when I had the chance.

I then tried Debian. All-in-all it was another less than positive experience. Both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel versions of Sarge had problems with my hardware.

I popped in another CD and see what would happen, hoping that doing the same thing again would yield different results. It didn't.

I decided to explore Gentoo.

Despite, the fact that some people consider doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a mark of insanity, I popped in yet another CD

Its working great with SATA and EVMS.

I was surprised that it worked.

It did require some source level tweaks

Well, it didn't really work, but someone told what I should be doing.

but part of the coolness I found with Gentoo is the very active user/support community and the tons of HowTos and guides.

Instead of visiting the FreeBSD website, where I could have found that FreeBSD offers a bewildering collection of well-written documentation in almost every imaginable format, I decided that The Handbook,
the Books and Articles Online section, Publications, Web Resources, A Section For Newbies or The Documentation Project, or reading the documentation in /usr/share/doc, manpages (also available online, or subscribing to the mailing list or reading its online archives, or the newsgroups, didn't fit with the way I do things. Instead, I found some forum using Google's I'm Feeling Lucky that has little or nothing to do with FreeBSD but is definitely better than all those places I didn't visit.

Unless they've made a quantum leap in improvements, FreeBSD would NOT be my choice for a SATA raid server.

I firmly believe my anecdotal experience qualifies me to offer non-sequitors with hyperbole but without embarassment.

This is probably one of the most absurd and ill-informed posts I've read in a while.

I tried in vain to setup FreeBSD 6.0 as a SATA software raid machine. I was using a more recent motherboard with graphics, network and SATA integrated on-board. I think they are all VIA chipsets. I eventually hit the eject on FreeBSD as I couldn't even get X up and running.

I bought a new motherboard without thinking too much about what I was buying and tried to install an operating system about which I knew just as little. Instead of taking the opportunity to make up for my obvious deficiencies, I quit when I realised my approach wouldn't work, but made a mental note to tell everyone about it when I had the chance.

I then tried Debian. All-in-all it was another less than positive experience. Both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel versions of Sarge had problems with my hardware.

I popped in another CD and see what would happen, hoping that doing the same thing again would yield different results. It didn't.

I decided to explore Gentoo.

Despite, the fact that some people consider doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a mark of insanity, I popped in yet another CD

Its working great with SATA and EVMS.

I was surprised that it worked.

It did require some source level tweaks

Well, it didn't really work, but someone told what I should be doing.

but part of the coolness I found with Gentoo is the very active user/support community and the tons of HowTos and guides.

Instead of visiting the FreeBSD website, where I could have found that FreeBSD offers a bewildering collection of well-written documentation in almost every imaginable format, I decided that The Handbook,
the Books and Articles Online section, Publications, Web Resources, A Section For Newbies or The Documentation Project, or reading the documentation in /usr/share/doc, manpages (also available online, or subscribing to the mailing list or reading its online archives, or the newsgroups, didn't fit with the way I do things. Instead, I found some forum using Google's I'm Feeling Lucky that has little or nothing to do with FreeBSD but is definitely better than all those places I didn't visit.

Unless they've made a quantum leap in improvements, FreeBSD would NOT be my choice for a SATA raid server.

I firmly believe my anecdotal experience qualifies me to offer non-sequitors with hyperbole but without embarassment.

This is probably one of the most absurd and ill-informed posts I've read in a while.

I tried in vain to setup FreeBSD 6.0 as a SATA software raid machine. I was using a more recent motherboard with graphics, network and SATA integrated on-board. I think they are all VIA chipsets. I eventually hit the eject on FreeBSD as I couldn't even get X up and running.

I bought a new motherboard without thinking too much about what I was buying and tried to install an operating system about which I knew just as little. Instead of taking the opportunity to make up for my obvious deficiencies, I quit when I realised my approach wouldn't work, but made a mental note to tell everyone about it when I had the chance.

I then tried Debian. All-in-all it was another less than positive experience. Both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel versions of Sarge had problems with my hardware.

I popped in another CD and see what would happen, hoping that doing the same thing again would yield different results. It didn't.

I decided to explore Gentoo.

Despite, the fact that some people consider doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a mark of insanity, I popped in yet another CD

Its working great with SATA and EVMS.

I was surprised that it worked.

It did require some source level tweaks

Well, it didn't really work, but someone told what I should be doing.

but part of the coolness I found with Gentoo is the very active user/support community and the tons of HowTos and guides.

Instead of visiting the FreeBSD website, where I could have found that FreeBSD offers a bewildering collection of well-written documentation in almost every imaginable format, I decided that The Handbook,
the Books and Articles Online section, Publications, Web Resources, A Section For Newbies or The Documentation Project, or reading the documentation in /usr/share/doc, manpages (also available online, or subscribing to the mailing list or reading its online archives, or the newsgroups, didn't fit with the way I do things. Instead, I found some forum using Google's I'm Feeling Lucky that has little or nothing to do with FreeBSD but is definitely better than all those places I didn't visit.

Unless they've made a quantum leap in improvements, FreeBSD would NOT be my choice for a SATA raid server.

I firmly believe my anecdotal experience qualifies me to offer non-sequitors with hyperbole but without embarassment.

This is probably one of the most absurd and ill-informed posts I've read in a while.

I tried in vain to setup FreeBSD 6.0 as a SATA software raid machine. I was using a more recent motherboard with graphics, network and SATA integrated on-board. I think they are all VIA chipsets. I eventually hit the eject on FreeBSD as I couldn't even get X up and running.

I bought a new motherboard without thinking too much about what I was buying and tried to install an operating system about which I knew just as little. Instead of taking the opportunity to make up for my obvious deficiencies, I quit when I realised my approach wouldn't work, but made a mental note to tell everyone about it when I had the chance.

I then tried Debian. All-in-all it was another less than positive experience. Both the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel versions of Sarge had problems with my hardware.

I popped in another CD and see what would happen, hoping that doing the same thing again would yield different results. It didn't.

I decided to explore Gentoo.

Despite, the fact that some people consider doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a mark of insanity, I popped in yet another CD

Its working great with SATA and EVMS.

I was surprised that it worked.

It did require some source level tweaks

Well, it didn't really work, but someone told what I should be doing.

but part of the coolness I found with Gentoo is the very active user/support community and the tons of HowTos and guides.

Instead of visiting the FreeBSD website, where I could have found that FreeBSD offers a bewildering collection of well-written documentation in almost every imaginable format, I decided that The Handbook,
the Books and Articles Online section, Publications, Web Resources, A Section For Newbies or The Documentation Project, or reading the documentation in /usr/share/doc, manpages (also available online, or subscribing to the mailing list or reading its online archives, or the newsgroups, didn't fit with the way I do things. Instead, I found some forum using Google's I'm Feeling Lucky that has little or nothing to do with FreeBSD but is definitely better than all those places I didn't visit.

Unless they've made a quantum leap in improvements, FreeBSD would NOT be my choice for a SATA raid server.

I firmly believe my anecdotal experience qualifies me to offer non-sequitors with hyperbole but without embarassment.

Some of what you say I find interesting - implying that the Gentoo community is more active than the FBSD group. I know you didn't actually say that; and maybe you didn't even imply as much; so you diserve the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, I have never seen documentation as thorough (although still somewhat incomplete) as:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/h andbook/index.html

The mailing lists are really helpful:
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo

And there is usually very good help to be found at usenet:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.bsd.freeb sd.misc?hl=en

There is not a free OS that "just works" with everything I want to do. There are many things that need a little customizing. If you are willing to source-level tweak Gentoo you should be able to get what you want done accomplished with FreeBSD.

I used Gentoo for a while - a year ago - for a couple months. Here's what I liked:

• The Linux Alsa audio system is pretty nice and works with more audio equipment than you'll find working on FreeBSD.
• Portage is almost as nice and the FreeBSD ports system.
• More ported applications.
• More current ports.

• The ports that attracted me to Linux (because they are not ported to FreeBSD) are often unstable. For example: I was attracted to the music composer applications Brahms and Rosegarden-4. Both programs constantly core-dumped on me. I couldn't get anything accomplished. So far, a nice music composing application doesn't seem to exist for 'nix. I'd be willing to pay for a good one that doesn't require winD'OH!s.
• Console-land isn't nearly as elegant as is on FreeBSD.
• I never could get the hang of runlevels... but that's just me (grin).

Some of what you say I find interesting - implying that the Gentoo community is more active than the FBSD group. I know you didn't actually say that; and maybe you didn't even imply as much; so you diserve the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, I have never seen documentation as thorough (although still somewhat incomplete) as:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/h andbook/index.html

The mailing lists are really helpful:
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo

And there is usually very good help to be found at usenet:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.bsd.freeb sd.misc?hl=en

There is not a free OS that "just works" with everything I want to do. There are many things that need a little customizing. If you are willing to source-level tweak Gentoo you should be able to get what you want done accomplished with FreeBSD.

I used Gentoo for a while - a year ago - for a couple months. Here's what I liked:

• The Linux Alsa audio system is pretty nice and works with more audio equipment than you'll find working on FreeBSD.
• Portage is almost as nice and the FreeBSD ports system.
• More ported applications.
• More current ports.

• The ports that attracted me to Linux (because they are not ported to FreeBSD) are often unstable. For example: I was attracted to the music composer applications Brahms and Rosegarden-4. Both programs constantly core-dumped on me. I couldn't get anything accomplished. So far, a nice music composing application doesn't seem to exist for 'nix. I'd be willing to pay for a good one that doesn't require winD'OH!s.
• Console-land isn't nearly as elegant as is on FreeBSD.
• I never could get the hang of runlevels... but that's just me (grin).

FreeBSD may be an excellent operating system, but it's lack of a good journaling file system is a major barrier to adoption. I don't think they can claim to be an excellent choice for SATA RAID arrays until this is addressed.

Although UFS2's background FSCK is a welcome improvement, it's not a solution.

It's good to see that there are projects to bring XFS and JFS support into FreeBSD, I suspect it will be a long time before they're production ready and you'll be able to boot FreeBSD on them.

Although this was probably intended as a trollish comment, yes, it does run Linux.

I have heard a podcast from www.freebsd.org from one of the developers mentioning the problems with gnome becoming too Linux centric.

BSDTalk #32 - Interview with FreeBSD Developer Joe Marcus Clarke there is a transcription here.

That BSDTalk guy does some awesome interviews.

AFAIK, FreeBSD is still Posix compliant and is a real unix, not a unix-like OS.

Mmm, no. FreeBSD is not POSIX compliant - yet. You can check the status at The FreeBSD C99 & POSIX® Conformance Project.

To recap history: Early BSD was "true" UNIX but the definition has changed since then, back then all you needed was the look and feel (e.g. Coherent UNIX) or an AT&T codebase (like UNIXv6, BSD..). Now the Open Group owns the trademark and maintains the SUS spec (to clarify: SUS includes POSIX). To be UNIX - and call it UNIX - you need to conform to the spec. There is nothing "real" about UNIX per se, and you can't just point at a system and say "that is UNIX" unless, of cource, you happen to be pointing at a really, really old PDP11 machine running AT&T UNIX. Besides, BSD has always stood on it's own and is often favored instead of "real" unices, this applies even on technical merits and not just aestetics (BSD was often considered more elegant in it's design). In fact, lots of stuff in the SUS spec comes directly from BSD.

Thats the BSD vs. UNIX relationship in a nutshell. IMO it's OK to call FreeBSD (or even Linux) "a UNIX" as they have nearly everything you might expect from a certified system such as AIX or Solaris. Be careful though, mindlessly calling *BSD a UNIX will eventually draw out certain people who endlessly nitpick about it (that's not what I'm trying to do here though, I'm just trying to be informative and UNIX history is a hobby of mine).

It is very reasonable to run Java in Linux. It's harder/more painful/whatever in the BSDs but it works.

FreeBSD now includes Sun Java as part of the distro, so it should be easy. Any Linux/BSD/etc distro can do this, it just requires spending the money to get it certified.

Ah, I believe I may be incorrect - the longer description sounds like an unrelated FPU bug:

FXSAVE and FXSTOR

GNU/Linux distributions are based on the Linux kernel. BSD distributions are based on the BSD kernel. For completeness, GNU/Hurd distributions are based on the GNU Hurd kernel.

FreeBSD 6.1-RC (mykernel) #0: Sun Apr 16 02:58:35 PDT 2006

Welcome to FreeBSD!

Before seeking technical support, please use the following resources:

o Security advisories and updated errata information for all releases are
      at http://www.freebsd.org/releases/ - always consult the ERRATA section
      for your release first as it's updated frequently.

o The Handbook and FAQ documents are at http://www.freebsd.org/ and,
      along with the mailing lists, can be searched by going to
      http://www.freebsd.org/search/. If the doc distribution has
      been installed, they're also available formatted in /usr/share/doc.

If you still have a question or problem, please take the output of
`uname -a', along with any relevant error messages, and email it
as a question to the questions@FreeBSD.org mailing list. If you are
unfamiliar with FreeBSD's directory layout, please refer to the hier(7)
manual page. If you are not familiar with manual pages, type `man man'.

You may also use sysinstall(8) to re-enter the installation and
configuration utility. Edit /etc/motd to change this login announcement.

FreeBSD 6.1-RC (mykernel) #0: Sun Apr 16 02:58:35 PDT 2006

Welcome to FreeBSD!

Before seeking technical support, please use the following resources:

o Security advisories and updated errata information for all releases are
      at http://www.freebsd.org/releases/ - always consult the ERRATA section
      for your release first as it's updated frequently.

o The Handbook and FAQ documents are at http://www.freebsd.org/ and,
      along with the mailing lists, can be searched by going to
      http://www.freebsd.org/search/. If the doc distribution has
      been installed, they're also available formatted in /usr/share/doc.

If you still have a question or problem, please take the output of
`uname -a', along with any relevant error messages, and email it
as a question to the questions@FreeBSD.org mailing list. If you are
unfamiliar with FreeBSD's directory layout, please refer to the hier(7)
manual page. If you are not familiar with manual pages, type `man man'.

You may also use sysinstall(8) to re-enter the installation and
configuration utility. Edit /etc/motd to change this login announcement.

FreeBSD 6.1-RC (mykernel) #0: Sun Apr 16 02:58:35 PDT 2006

Welcome to FreeBSD!

Before seeking technical support, please use the following resources:

o Security advisories and updated errata information for all releases are
      at http://www.freebsd.org/releases/ - always consult the ERRATA section
      for your release first as it's updated frequently.

o The Handbook and FAQ documents are at http://www.freebsd.org/ and,
      along with the mailing lists, can be searched by going to
      http://www.freebsd.org/search/. If the doc distribution has
      been installed, they're also available formatted in /usr/share/doc.

If you still have a question or problem, please take the output of
`uname -a', along with any relevant error messages, and email it
as a question to the questions@FreeBSD.org mailing list. If you are
unfamiliar with FreeBSD's directory layout, please refer to the hier(7)
manual page. If you are not familiar with manual pages, type `man man'.

You may also use sysinstall(8) to re-enter the installation and
configuration utility. Edit /etc/motd to change this login announcement.

Correction: when _you_ start using up a lot of memory Linux totally sucks. When I start using up a lot of memory, Linux acts exactly as I expect, and better than FreeBSD. (PDF reference) Hrm. Looks like FreeBSD panics under load in it's default configuration. So sad.

From a stability point of view, Linux and NetBSD worked stable all the time, FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE panicked under load (that went away with 5.1- CURRENT) and OpenBSD crashed and panicked even in 3.4-CURRENT. OpenBSD also surprised me with "interesting" syslog messages like "/bsd: full".

The most important OS offering async I/O is FreeBSD.
Linux 2.4 scales badly for mmap and many processes.

(FreeBSD) kqueue is older than epoll. I think Linux should simply have implemented the kqueue API instead of inventing epoll, but the Linux people insist on doing all the mistakes of the other people again. For example, the epoll guy initially thought he could get away without level triggering. The performance of epoll and kqueue is very similiar.

FreeBSD 6.0-RELEASE (GENERIC) #0: Thu Nov 3 09:36:13 UTC 2005

Welcome to FreeBSD!

Before seeking technical support, please use the following resources:

o Security advisories and updated errata information for all releases are
      at http://www.freebsd.org/releases/ - always consult the ERRATA section
      for your release first as it's updated frequently.

o The Handbook and FAQ documents are at http://www.freebsd.org/ and,
      along with the mailing lists, can be searched by going to
      http://www.freebsd.org/search/. If the doc distribution has
      been installed, they're also available formatted in /usr/share/doc.

If you still have a question or problem, please take the output of
`uname -a', along with any relevant error messages, and email it
as a question to the questions@FreeBSD.org mailing list. If you are
unfamiliar with FreeBSD's directory layout, please refer to the hier(7)
manual page. If you are not familiar with manual pages, type `man man'.

You may also use sysinstall(8) to re-enter the installation and
configuration utility. Edit /etc/motd to change this login announcement.

joe@gateway$

hth.