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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.

... no, not unless Linux or BSD is somehow involved.

It can be found here or here

The release engineering activities for 4.6.1 are taking place on the RELENG_4_6 branch in CVS, while the work on 5.0 DP2 is taking place in Perforce so as not to disturb ongoing -CURRENT development.

Also, the current Perl 5 development also takes place on a Perforce repository, with public-accessible rsync mirrors available.

What is going wrong with Linux kernel development that CVS is not sufficient?

CVS is painful to use for many common tasks required for large-sized software projects -- its shortcoming on atomic commits, directory versioning, copy-on-write branches, etc. are widely acknowledged.

It is a good thing that, for a relatively small software sector where the neccessary designs are hardly well-understood, proprietary version control systems could use its customer's funding to experiment with advanced features. As long as nobody gets a monopoly on those ideas (read: software patents), they create a pool of ideas that related free software projects can learn from it -- it is really more like a symbiosis, not antagonism.

It is all a very healthy process of ideas in the 'niche' market, first commissioned by paying customers, then trickle down to the low-end market (think iMovie), which makes enough people to appreciate and understand how it should work like, and finally appears as a full-fledged free software -- and everybody can just move forward and play with new things, proprietary or not.

The remark on lkml that the new BKL is 'pulling a Qt' is probably right on the mark, though: The new Perl pumpking (Hugo) wishes to migrate Perforce to Subversion, and help building the missing pieces that people needs. No doubt that many people are doing the same thing right now, myself included.

/Autrijus/

Not one mention of the fxp bug fixes in the release notes.

Look at Revision 1.110.2.24 of if_fxp.c

MFC 1.136

Where 1.136 is "fix handling of RNR conditions when using polling"

click me

I really felt a FreeBSD 4.6.2 box I maintain was getting bit by that bug. The interface would just drop dead with a few kernel messages about it croaking.

is the documentation. Yes there's some excellent linux docs on the ldp site but for FreeBSD you can just consult the Handbook for everthing.

most of the FTPs seem to be pretty much overloaded, but a really good way to find mirrors is to use a good ftp search like alltheweb.com search for 4.6.2-disc1 or better still 4.7-disc1 (which still wasn't returing results when i posted) and hunting for fast low ping servers running unlisted mirrors, preferably finding a mirror that is geographically close to you. Just make sure you get the md5sum list from the official site. I'm currently pulling 95k of my 100k Downstream cap from an undisclosed university (.edu) mirror. much better than fighting the rush of people trying to mirror the new files from the official sites.

Have you just installed the OS on your computer? And "tried" the sound, because in FreeBSD sound isn't compiled by default, nor are alot of other things.

You can find information on compiling Sound Support into your FreeBSD kernel .

There is another problem I noticed if you are using KDE, the default sound device is /dev/snd0 which doesn't seem to want to work on FreeBSD, so you have to set it to /dev/pcm0 or whatever your sound card is..

Hope you get it working, its an awesome OS. I finally switched to it on my desktop after they came out with the ATA fix. :)

The FreeBSD handbook is an excellent guide to all aspects of installing, configuring, and using a FreeBSD system. The allocating disk space section contains well written instructions (with pictures) that explain how disk partitions work on FreeBSD, and how to create them.

On my system, I use the GNU GRUB boot loader (used as the default boot loader in many Linux distributions), and it seems quite able to boot partitions over the infamous 1024 (cylinder?) limit. The GRUB manual suggests this configuration for booting FreeBSD. If you use GRUB, select the "Leave the Master Boot Record" option when you install FreeBSD.

Note that on an Intel 386-compatible system, you'll need a spare primary partition to install FreeBSD. Perhaps you don't have one, as there are only four, and each DOS or Windows install will want one, and one will be used to create the extended partition your Linux distribution is likely to install itself in. It might be easier to buy another hard disk drive.

The FreeBSD handbook is an excellent guide to all aspects of installing, configuring, and using a FreeBSD system. The allocating disk space section contains well written instructions (with pictures) that explain how disk partitions work on FreeBSD, and how to create them.

On my system, I use the GNU GRUB boot loader (used as the default boot loader in many Linux distributions), and it seems quite able to boot partitions over the infamous 1024 (cylinder?) limit. The GRUB manual suggests this configuration for booting FreeBSD. If you use GRUB, select the "Leave the Master Boot Record" option when you install FreeBSD.

Note that on an Intel 386-compatible system, you'll need a spare primary partition to install FreeBSD. Perhaps you don't have one, as there are only four, and each DOS or Windows install will want one, and one will be used to create the extended partition your Linux distribution is likely to install itself in. It might be easier to buy another hard disk drive.

After reading this, I thought it would be only fair to mention this:

FreeBSD 4.7 is out. Here is the announcement.

It's scheduled for release on Nov 20, but I expect that date will slide a bit with recent developments. You can expect it before mid-December. It's worth the wait...

Ah, I hope it will support my promise Supertrak SX6000 RAID controller.
hmm:
The pst driver, for supporting Promise SuperTrak ATA RAID controllers, has been added.
Sweet. There is hope, thank you Søren Schmidt.

And ftp.freebsd.org is hosted by a local ISP, as well as the local mirror. Ah, I will have the disc in 40 minutes. yes.. Now if only I haven't drunk that bottle of wine for dinner, oh well. just makes installing that more fun.

RELENG_4_7_0_RELEASE

See FreeBSD:CVS Tags

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=82840 +0+current/freebsd-security

Do we have to pay for stability next? Uh-Uh!

Stability is free. The Blue Screen of Death, now that's expensive.

If you read through all the things listed maybe you would realise some people _can't_ install microsoft's patches because of there EULA requirements.

Let's see...

Unpatched windows: Bugbear.

Patched windows: No bugbear, but all your file are belong to Microsoft.

LindowsOS: Different enough from the Win9x and WinNT lines that it may not catch the same viruses. Definitely comes with a mailer that's not susceptible to the iframe bug.

Fourth option. Fifth option. Sixth option. Seventh option.

Choose the one most appealing to you.

FreeBSD's ports system also automatically checks MD5 sums on downloaded files.

That being said, it certainly isn't inconceivable that the checksums themselves could be tampered with, but it is at the least a further layer of security.

Look at http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/UPDATING

RELENG_4_3 was last patched Thu May 2 20:37:12 2002

RELENG_4_4 was last patched Fri Sep 13 15:09:04 2002

RELENG_4_5 was last patched Fri Sep 13 15:07:23 2002

RELENG_4_6 was last patched Fri Sep 13 15:04:16 2002

RELENG_4_7 has not been released.

Seems to me that's at least three supported versions.

FreeBSD 4.3 RELEASE was done April 21, 2001. Last patch was done 13 months after that. You could still use it if you used OpenSSL, OpenSSH, BIND, etc. from the ports tree.

Thing is, it is a moral issue. The choice isn't between "free" or commercial software, it is between philosophies that differ as in "my way or no way" on one side and "live and let live" on the other.

It is a choice between freedom and totalitarianism.

Sure. CVS cannot be used on big projects.

Like the whole freebsd kernel+userland

SARCASM--

Cheers,

--fred

Finally OpenBSD will ahve some straight up competition. For a long time it has been the most secure, and the only BSD with SMP support.

Can't wait to see what FreeBSD does to top this!

The rest of the world *does* exist you know.

Mainly because Lunar Linux and Sorcerer GNU/Linux aren't quite as difficult as Gentoo. More of the installation chores are automated. For example, while Gentoo expects the user to manually chroot and copy the system over from the CD to the root partition, Lunar and Sorcerer do this automatically. Also, optimisation is broken down into a series of easy-to-grasp choices (the optimisation setting for really fucking fast code is labelled clearly) rather than expecting the user to muck around with CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS.

Best of all, IMHO, it's feasible (though almost time-consuming as installing software through FreeBSD's ports system) to install Lunar on a machine using a dialup. As far as difficulty is concerned, I'd class Lunar between Slackware and Gentoo. Hope this helps a bit.

--
St. Matthew, Patron Saint of Cheeky Programmers

By your logic, "BSD" isn't anywhere on FreeBSD.org or OpenBSD.org if it shows the description.

Not all of them, but it does come with a number of them, not least of all the compiler

OTOH, every major distribution comes with pieces of BSD, too.

Linux doesn't have ANYTHING like this!!!!

I'm switching right now!!!

Wrong.

4. Soft updates, as someone else has mentioned.
5. Hello? SMP support has been in there for what, 4 years now?

Stop the FUD train, please. I want off.

There has to be a way to take Windows Media Player off your computer. If I am correct, there should be a program to illimate the presence of Microsoft product

one patch and another

Wrong, on Darwin, NeXT STeP, OpenStep and Mac OS X, the /usr/lib/dyld (which is like /lib/ld.so) can find the libraries if there are in /System/Library/Frameworks/XXX.framework/XXX, /Library/Frameworks/XXX.framework/XXX, ~/Library/Frameworks/XXX.framework/XXX, and /Network/Library/Frameworks/XXX.framework/XXX (not in that order though), so the LD_LIBRARY_PATH (actually DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH on Darwin/Mac OSX) does not need to be touched at all.


read dyld(1) and ld(1) for more information on how this is done.

Wrong, on Darwin, NeXT STeP, OpenStep and Mac OS X, the /usr/lib/dyld (which is like /lib/ld.so) can find the libraries if there are in /System/Library/Frameworks/XXX.framework/XXX, /Library/Frameworks/XXX.framework/XXX, ~/Library/Frameworks/XXX.framework/XXX, and /Network/Library/Frameworks/XXX.framework/XXX (not in that order though), so the LD_LIBRARY_PATH (actually DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH on Darwin/Mac OSX) does not need to be touched at all.


read dyld(1) and ld(1) for more information on how this is done.

Been a pretty busy day for the FreeBSD people

Been a pretty busy day for the FreeBSD people

Been a pretty busy day for the FreeBSD people

Been a pretty busy day for the FreeBSD people

Been a pretty busy day for the FreeBSD people

Been a pretty busy day for the FreeBSD people

Been a pretty busy day for the FreeBSD people

Been a pretty busy day for the FreeBSD people

Been a pretty busy day for the FreeBSD people

...is already working on something similar. They call it Common Content Delivery System.

Yours, Mike Bouma

I agree with most of the article, except they didn't get the Perforce right. See here for more info.

Sun needs a transition plan to make migration from the low end Linux/x86 based desktops and servers to their Solaris/Sparc based high end workstations and enterprise servers. Otherwise they will not be able to bring as much sales up to the higher tier. There are two ways to do this. One is to run Solaris on x86 hardware as the middle tier. The other is to run Linux on Sparc hardware as the middle tier. One of these approaches leaves Sun subject to the whims of another CPU maker, which has it's own plans for 64-bit domination. The other leaves Sun subject to the whims of a huge open source software community and a few choices in Linux distributions (such as Debian, Mandrake, and SuSE) as well as FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. Which way do you think would be better for Sun?

11 comments, and most of them are people grumbling about how Red Hat is squeezing choice out of the hands of the user. But really, is this true? What RH has done (from what I hear, I don't chase bleeding-edge distros, usually) is just change the way things look. They've provided a different default appearance. How is this worse from the default appearances provided by the GNOME and KDE teams? (RH's arguments for why it's better are in the article, you should read it :3 )

It's not like Red Hat is releasing modified versions of GNOME and KDE that don't let you customize the appearance; then, only then, would the complaints about choice be founded. The people who really care about the difference between GNOME and KDE probably do so on reasons deeper than 'the default theme looks cool'. (Personally, I don't really like either of the default appearances that much ^^; ) So, when nagora asks "If RH doesn't like this, why don't they drop the one they don't want people to use?" the answer is: they don't care what you use, but they want the defaults to look reasonably similar, because they know that people who really don't *want* their default theme either know how to change it or probably have settings that they'll import anyway.

Remember who Red Hat's intended market share is: the corporate environment. A lot of people I've talked to recently agree that RH's biggest 'ins' are (or should be) for office workstations. Lots of places implement a baseline standard that they want to look the same, but that people can customize if they want to (as long as they don't spend hours tweaking it). This is the mentality that RH seems to target. Yes, this isn't for everyone, but that's the point ... there are plenty of good distributions out there, and many more choices out there if you really really don't like it. But no-one said you have to use Red Hat. (Although I could understand concerns about RH-isms creeping into LSB, but nobody's brought that up.)

Remember, RH == vendor for corporate enviroments. Corporate environments like standard desktops, so this move makes sense in Red Hat's perspective.

I can recognise Windows by the fact that it is bland and ugly. I can recognise a GNU/Linux or FreeBSD desktop no matter what window manager is being used; I'd used just about all of 'em. Let Red Hat do what it wants with its distro; if you don't like what they do, then switch to Gentoo or FreeBSD. Red Hat is not Burger King, and "Have it your way" isn't one of Red Hat's slogans. So if you want Linux made your way, make it yourself.

Unfortunately, FreeBSD's platform list does not say anything about the Commodore 64. It is hardly a replacement for LUnix, then.

To me, the most critical thing in the Linux market right now is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the Linux market?

Almost a year ago, Alan Cox and myself, expecting the linux market to expand, hired Marcelo Tosatti to maintain Linux 2.4. The the initial work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of our lives documenting, improving and adding features to Linux. Now we have reiserfs, ext3, a robust VM, UML, and the 2.5 development tree. The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000,000.

The feedback we have gotten from the thousands of people who say they are using Linux has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought Linux (less than 10% of all computer owners have bought Linux), and 2) The amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on GNU/Linux worth less than $2 an hour.

Why is this? As the majority of users must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?

Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is get back at Berkeley for some problem you may have had. Berkeley doesn't make money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the CD's and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 10-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money in Linux software. We have written 3 stable kernels, and are writing Linux-2.5, but there is very little incentive to make this software available to Linux users. Most directly, the thing you do is theft.

What about the guys who re-sell Linux, such as linuxmall.com, aren't they making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give
Linux users a bad name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.

I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me at:

3940 Freedom Circle
Santa Clara, CA 95054 USA

Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the Linux market with good software.

Linus Torvalds
Transmeta Corporation

Do you even know what the hell you're talking about?

Any word on how UML compares to the FreeBSD emulation of Linux? I've heard claims that FreeBSD can run Linux binaries faster than Linux, so it would be interesting for a one-on-one comparison of User-Mode Linux and FreeBSD Linux emulation.

If you can't donate hardware, donate your computer skills. The Junior Kernel hacker TODO list gives some examples of much-needed projects.