Slashdot Mirror

For more information about the Linux ABI, see this manpage.

Here's a direct link to the pertinent section. It details kernel, userland, and security updates that have gone into the 5.0 tree of FreeBSD.

What I haven't yet seen used anywhere outside my own software and some programming languages internals (e.g. calling Perl code from C), is using data stack for temporary memory allocations. It has the most important advantage of garbage collectors: allocate memory without worrying about freeing it. It also has a few gotchas, but I'd say its advantages are well worth it.

if they could run something other than NT/AIX

*cough* freebsd *cough*

I have a similar problem with Adaptec. I'm trying to get register-level specs for their AIC-7xxx series of scsi chips.
On their Linux page they claim to support open source:

We have launched a dedicated Web site to provide a repository of
information for our open source solutions, including:

* Our latest Open Source drivers
* Technical documentation
* White papers
* FAQs

But in fact there is no technical documentation available beyond lightweight lists lists of features and general hardware type. Directly contacting Adaptec, I get nowhere without a product serial number, which of course I don't have because the chips are embedded in an OEM motherboard.

So maybe I'm just not talking to the right person, but it does look like the company is saying one thing and doing another.

To be fair, the driver support for Linux is good. Drivers are developed by an Adaptec-sponsored group and provided in source form. These drivers are in the mainline 2.4 and 2.5 source trees. This is a far better performance than, for example, NVidia, whose drivers are well-known for breaking every few kernel releases because of their binary-only nature. Still, it's not enough. It seems to me Adaptec is just shooting themselves in the foot by keeping the low level interface specs closed. If they continue to do that, they will certainly be knocked out of the market by other hardware that's better understood by kernel hackers, for which both low and high level optimization can be done by lots of developers. That's exactly what I'm trying to do with their chips, and to be frank, I'm doing it only because I happen to have one available to play with at the moment. But I'll move on without hesitation as soon as something shows up that gives me more scope for interesting optimizations. I'm just not one of those people who enjoys reverse-engineering, though I have immense respect for those who do.

The way things are, the Adaptec guys who develop the Linux drivers can do plenty of low level optimization based on things that only they know about the hardware, but who will listen to them if they want changes in the core kernel for better support? Plus, who wants to invest in hardware that is certain to become unsupportable as soon as the company EOLs the product? With Linux basically taking over the server market, I see that policy as the most efficient way to become part of the sedimentary fossil record as soon as possible.

Since it was such a small fix the reason why it took so long for the fixed version to be released is that Mozilla is a monstrosity, and it took SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO long to build it.

That's why I use fast and small browsers, like this browser and another great browser on my systems.

Spare me the smoke and vapor. Don't you remember the sad story of Mica, errr, NT on Alpha? Loudly proclaimed, quietly killed, that's why I think they are not there. If you consider the number of bugs and holes in 32bit M$ work, you might conclude they never arived anywhere.

In the mean time, you can get Linux and BSD on Alpha and other 64 bit platoforms:

• Debian
  
• Red Hat
  
• BSDs, free, net, open
  
• and plenty of others less well known.
  

Oh, it hurts so much to remember and think!

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/contrib/ gcc/ didn't show anything about this. I guess you're wrong.

This is an attempt to clarify some issues. Correct me if I'm wrong, Darwin's histroy is complicated and I might be off here and there. In my opinion, the question if GNU-Darwin is Apple Darwin or not is the mirror image of asking if Linux with BSD toolchain instead of GNU toolchain is Linux or not. Darwin is an operating system developed by Apple, which serves as a basis for OS X.

Apple's Darwin distribution is a BSD flavor, with a kernel based on CMU Mach, and most of the utilities taken from FreeBSD. It is released under the APSL.

GNU-Darwin is a distribution of Darwin with some favorite GNU software ported to it, as well as the FreeBSD ports tree. It is not Free Software, as the Darwin part is APSL, and thus considered non-free by the FSF. Despite its name, its not a GNU package either. Nor is it GNU/Darwin, as that would imply that it is the GNU system on a Darwin kernel; AFAIK GNU-Darwin is a BSD system.

I don't know anything about OpenDarwin and am too lazy to go find out right now. Hopefully I have managed to enlightened some of you who were wondering what all this is.

Is that ability ever utilized to any extent in legitimate, day-to-day operations?

Yes. My company, Lumeta, does scans of corporate networks, connecting to hundreds to thousands of new machines every second. Of course, if this is done at the OS-level, this is a non-issue, since we do not use connect() anyway (does not give us enough information, reactivity, or control), but rather construct packets from scratch and, regardless, we can play with the OS, since it runs on FreeBSD.

If, on the other hand, this is done on the network-level, this would cause problems, and we would have to be put on exclude lists on every router up to the corporate backbone. We balance the load across the corporation's entire IP space, but it takes a lot of divisions to get from even 100/second to 1/second.

We already run into issues where a certain router vendor has an odd "cache" that is not reaped when memory starts to become low. This would make things much worse.

Unfortunately, if this can be disabled in the OS programatically, it is useless, so the network is the obvious place to put such a restriction. Of course, now the network is retaining state about all connections going through it. Most firewalls already do this, however.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say "operating systems"? Of course the article appeared in a mainstream, non-techinical journal so I guess:

(Microsoft Windows) == (computer)

• (GNU/)Linux
• Mac OS X
• FreeBSD
• etc.

Worms on the other hand...

Update to 2.2.7 which is mostly a security release, but fixes other minor bugs.

• Linux Kernel 2.2 (with low memory i would recommend 2.2..) or a really stripped-down 2.4 kernel, running a modern distro which is rather slick in itself, like Slackware or Debian. This will help you avoiding numerous security holes in older distros.
• There has been an article which focusses on small yet functional destop programs.
• If you want to go with really stripped-down distros, which are suitable (or optimized) for embedded computers, check this link.
• I have to agree with some of the other posters that one of the *BSD derivates can be and feel a lot smaller than full-featured, KDE3-based Linux distros...
• If security is not much of an issue for you, for whatever reason, you might want to go for an outdated Linux distro. Watch out for a 2.0 or 2.2 kernel, and libc5 instead of glibc2/libc6, or you might not gain much from the old stuff... Or even Minix? VSTa?

Since the STABLE and CURRENT branches are getting thrown around a lot when talking about FreeBSD's (awesome) stability, anyone thinking of giving it a try should understand that these are *both* development branches.

Again, STABLE is a development branch, as is CURRENT. If you want a *really* stable production FreeBSD box, track the RELEASE branch.

From the FreeBSD handbook, 21.2 FreeBSD-CURRENT vs. FreeBSD-STABLE:

FreeBSD-CURRENT is the latest working sources for FreeBSD. This includes work in progress, experimental changes, and transitional mechanisms that might or might not be present in the next official release of the software. While many FreeBSD developers compile the FreeBSD-CURRENT source code daily, there are periods of time when the sources are not buildable. These problems are resolved as expeditiously as possible, but whether or not FreeBSD-CURRENT brings disaster or greatly desired functionality can be a matter of which exact moment you grabbed the source code in!

FreeBSD-STABLE is our development branch from which major releases are made. Changes go into this branch at a different pace, and with the general assumption that they have first gone into FreeBSD-CURRENT for testing. This is still a development branch, however, and this means that at any given time, the sources for FreeBSD-STABLE may or may not be suitable for any particular purpose. It is simply another engineering development track, not a resource for end-users.

Since the STABLE and CURRENT branches are getting thrown around a lot when talking about FreeBSD's (awesome) stability, anyone thinking of giving it a try should understand that these are *both* development branches.

Again, STABLE is a development branch, as is CURRENT. If you want a *really* stable production FreeBSD box, track the RELEASE branch.

From the FreeBSD handbook, 21.2 FreeBSD-CURRENT vs. FreeBSD-STABLE:

FreeBSD-CURRENT is the latest working sources for FreeBSD. This includes work in progress, experimental changes, and transitional mechanisms that might or might not be present in the next official release of the software. While many FreeBSD developers compile the FreeBSD-CURRENT source code daily, there are periods of time when the sources are not buildable. These problems are resolved as expeditiously as possible, but whether or not FreeBSD-CURRENT brings disaster or greatly desired functionality can be a matter of which exact moment you grabbed the source code in!

FreeBSD-STABLE is our development branch from which major releases are made. Changes go into this branch at a different pace, and with the general assumption that they have first gone into FreeBSD-CURRENT for testing. This is still a development branch, however, and this means that at any given time, the sources for FreeBSD-STABLE may or may not be suitable for any particular purpose. It is simply another engineering development track, not a resource for end-users.

FreeBSD does not need to make compromises for portability to other platforms (like NetBSD and Linux), it is wholly developed for x86.

No. FreeBSD has pretty much always run on Alpha and i386. There are ports of FreeBSD-current (aka 5.0) for Sparc, PPC, mips and ia64. I think I'm right in saying that the Sparc port will be released alongside Alpha and i386 for 5.0.

See here for details.

I believe libh to still be alive: libh. In fact, it looks like it will have mulitple GUI's to choose from.

FreeBSD/GNOME also has it's own website, here.

Oddly enough, the installer isn't ncurses, it's a program called 'dialog'. It's a kludge that someone jkh beat into the system a while back, and everyone would like to see changed, although efforts have stalled at the moment.

The history is here, for further reading.

I started using gentoo about a month ago because FreeBSD didnt have GLX drivers for nVidia cards. I changed back to FreeBSD as soon as this happened.

I find it kind of bothersome that 'gentoolkit' is not mentioned in the Portage User Guide, but there are about sixty words that discuss it at the end of the Portage Manual which is over 6000 words. I would think that there should be a good argument that this should be in the base system, if gentoo had one. And why has 'etc-update' been moved out of the 'base system' and into portage?

Maybe im just too used to the way that FreeBSD does stuff. I would hate it if FreeBSD used the ports tree for the base system. But that would be impossible because there is a lot of code that wouldnt exist if it wasnt in the FreeBSD CVS tree.

Everything that I ever wanted to know is either in the FreeBSD Handbook or the mailing list archives.

I started using gentoo about a month ago because FreeBSD didnt have GLX drivers for nVidia cards. I changed back to FreeBSD as soon as this happened.

I find it kind of bothersome that 'gentoolkit' is not mentioned in the Portage User Guide, but there are about sixty words that discuss it at the end of the Portage Manual which is over 6000 words. I would think that there should be a good argument that this should be in the base system, if gentoo had one. And why has 'etc-update' been moved out of the 'base system' and into portage?

Maybe im just too used to the way that FreeBSD does stuff. I would hate it if FreeBSD used the ports tree for the base system. But that would be impossible because there is a lot of code that wouldnt exist if it wasnt in the FreeBSD CVS tree.

Everything that I ever wanted to know is either in the FreeBSD Handbook or the mailing list archives.

Sorry if I sound like a troll (I'm just adding my two cents), but Gentoo seems to have the best of both the FreeBSD and GNU/Linux worlds. I get the increased app compatibility of GNU/Linux with a great ports system.

Nah, you don't sound like a troll, just uninformed.

Portage isn't better. Its different. Its also smaller (2,000 ports as listed on gentoo.org vs 8,000 as listed on freebsd.org and not as up to date and other such things.

As for App compatibility; gentoo doesn't use redhat, redhat libraries/versions of libraries, or RPM that 99% of "commercial" linux apps use. FreeBSD does, FreeBSD includes RedHat 7.mumble for its linux binary compatibilty. Loki Games, before they went under, testified to this fact by saying that it was easier to support Linux running on FreeBSD than it was to support straigh Linux. Why? Because of issues like you are runing gentoo that uses X, and someone else is running Debian, etc. If you want ports, and linux compatibility, and speed, and stability.. well its called FreeBSD and its here, come and drink the kool-aid!

Sorry if I sound like a troll (I'm just adding my two cents), but Gentoo seems to have the best of both the FreeBSD and GNU/Linux worlds. I get the increased app compatibility of GNU/Linux with a great ports system.

Nah, you don't sound like a troll, just uninformed.

Portage isn't better. Its different. Its also smaller (2,000 ports as listed on gentoo.org vs 8,000 as listed on freebsd.org and not as up to date and other such things.

As for App compatibility; gentoo doesn't use redhat, redhat libraries/versions of libraries, or RPM that 99% of "commercial" linux apps use. FreeBSD does, FreeBSD includes RedHat 7.mumble for its linux binary compatibilty. Loki Games, before they went under, testified to this fact by saying that it was easier to support Linux running on FreeBSD than it was to support straigh Linux. Why? Because of issues like you are runing gentoo that uses X, and someone else is running Debian, etc. If you want ports, and linux compatibility, and speed, and stability.. well its called FreeBSD and its here, come and drink the kool-aid!

1) If you want the best performace with linux, you will propably have to re-compile everything. You can do all this by hand by following the procedures giving by the Linux from Scratch projet. If this is too much for you, you can go with source-type distributions.

2) If you don't want to go down the "compile-for-3-days" path, you can try modern distros of linux or BSD: FreeBSD, NetBSD or OpenBSD (there is a debian "port" of netbsd and one of freebsd that *could* make life easier). Most are compiled for i386 and can be used if you...

3) Carefully choose your applications! Don't use Kde or Gnome unless it has been carefully stripped of all the surplus. Don't use Mozilla, try pheonix instead.

4) Try it! The best way to know if this is better than that is to try it out.

If it's still too slow or un-usable for you, you can try to give you computer a specific task... like X-terminal or even a router...

I did make some old machines working again with these simples guidelines but i think the most important thing is to...

5)Have fun! I know i did!

sigh....

Well, the native patchset for 1.4 for developers is available. There are no legal troubles afaik, but it just takes time to port.

If the application you want to run is one of the 5000 applications in the "FreeBSD ports collection", then a simple "make install" in the proper directory will download the sources, patch them for FreeBSD, compile and install. If you need to run something that is distributed as binaries only, then FreeBSD has support for the Linux ABI. I run Linux versions of Mathematica and Unreal Tournament 2003 with no problems at all.

I'm a FreeBSD user since three months, and I think FreeBSD is an excellent beginner's unix.

My unix adventures started with downloading Redhat and installing it. It took 30 minutes and I learned nothing. Then I sat there with a system that I had no idea how to configure to my taste. I disliked it and went back to Windows.

My next try was FreeBSD. Installing it took a couple of tries and it took at least a day or two before I was satisfied. But I learned a lot, mainly because of the excellent online documentation. Now I run FreeBSD on all my computers and I am not going back.

That being said, expect Linux to have better support for the latest and greatest hardware. (And expect Windows to have even better hardware support than Linux!) But I'm happy since the recent release of FreeBSD drivers for my NVidia card.

All those topics and more would make great, interesting Slashdot headlines. But no, instead we get "MAME adds support for yet-another-coin-op-arcade-game". What world do you slashdot editors live in??

The only problem is that the installer for the more recent FreeBSD versions require more than 8MB of RAM (12MB is the bare minimum I think). For firewall and/or router purposes, try out ClosedBSD which is based on PicoBSD (which in turn is based on an earlier release of FreeBSD). You can download the ISO from there.

For even a smaller install, NetBSD might do the trick, as well as OpenBSD.

2488MB may seem to be a big download for 56k, but remember that you are getting a fully working system with packages included. It used to be that all us suckers had to download huge stuff on 56k modems.

(waits to be modded down for mentioning *BSD.)

2488MB may seem to be a big download for 56k, but remember that you are getting a fully working system with packages included. It used to be that all us suckers had to download huge stuff on 56k modems.

(waits to be modded down for mentioning *BSD.)

No right-minded packaging system would have merged in the MD5 changes from the site on blind faith without at least giving the old and new files a cursory diff. The only people that were fooled by the weak strategy of modifying the server's MD5sum file are people who used the equally weak strategy of downloading it at the same time as the file. Everybody with a reasonable checksum-checking build system is safe.

There needs to be some kind of utility that figures out dependencies, then goes and DOWNLOADS AND INSTALLS THEM for you

You mean like the FreeBSD ports setup?

Yeah, I know I'm posting from my Windows machine. My FreeBSD machine is in the other room, with the AV gear. It's pretending to be a jukebox right now. When I finally scrape together enough nickles for a new machine, then my main machine will dual boot win/bsd.

Like others have said, games are a big part of my keeping winsows at home. That and the tax software that my wife and I use is Windows only. (anyone know of Linux/BSD Canadian tax software?)

and if you're looking at small/lightweight installations, like what the slashdot article was mentioning, you'd do good too check out PicoBSD. It's been used on 486 boxes with as low as 4MB RAM, though 8MB is recommended.

It's based on FreeBSD 3.0-Current and needs only a 386SX, 8MB RAM and boots off a floppy (HDD optional ;)

I've never used an ATI card, but I use XFree86 with a Matrox card on Freebsd, and the accelerated 3D is pretty solid.

S.

You probably have never seen that The Matrix was rendered on FreeBSD, then.

Ah...NO... the links you mention do NOT exist. At least not that I can see in, or above, the 3rd step. For those that are wondering, the link above will warp you to a page with three steps: products, part#, and OS. Looking in the Linux area only shows stuff for Finux distro, and there is not mention of FreeBSD!

So at this point, this still looks like a hoax to me! However, is is well known that nvidia IS working on a FreeBSD native driver. It just doesn't look like its finished yet. No Nvidia people have posted anythign to the -STABLE mailling list yet. Mind you no employee's of Nvidia have. Other post's there could be from the same people trolling this hoax.

Here , here , and here

Here , here , and here

Here , here , and here

Or maybe take a look at this The Twelve Days of Code-Freeze

Or this:
FreeBSD songbook

I stand corrected. But good luck if you ever send a bug report. I'm not sure what's worse, those OpenBSD assholes or the "FUCK FUMEROLA" troll that floods the FreeBSD ports list. They even closed the send-pr system!

The only real advantage that OpenBSD has is hardware crypto accelerators support, but even that is being ported to FreeBSD now. OTOH, OpenBSD isn't even using ELF yet, has no SMP support, less than 1000 packages and most of its developers are total PITA to deal with. It runs on more platforms. I'd say OpenBSD looks like a cheap NetBSD rip-off.

Unfortunately, FreeBSD seems to be plagued by trolls lately

That's silly. FreeBSD uses a copy-on-write model. If you're swapping kernel memory, you've got bigger problems than choosing an implementation language.

FreeBSD PPC support is still wearing diapers, see the current status.

On PPC it's even easier: If the web site of the FreeBSD/PPC project isn't outdated, it won't get as far as multi-user mode anyway.

FreeBSD hasn't eaten any of my papers.

Any other seemingly valid reasons to switch away from UNIX and to begin using MacOS X?

I'll stick with UNIX, as it supports more platforms with more horsepower under the hood than Apple can deliver.

Way to front page this fluff.

Did something die?

Blegh, will people please stop using "chroot jail" when they really just mean "chroot"?

This is jail - a syscall which puts a process inside it's own process list, user list, IP and root directory, while limiting various syscalls which might make it possible (or at least easy) to escape the jail.

This is chroot - a syscall which puts a process inside it's own root directory. As you said, this is almost completely unrelated to system-call security.

chroot is not jail, jail is not (merely) chroot. Calling chroot "chroot jail" actually makes it *less* clear what you're talking about.