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BSDI Acquires Telenet System Solutions
pestel writes: "BSDI has acquired Telenet System Solutions, a hardware supplier that sells systems built using BSD. You can see the press
release over at Daily Daemon News. Good
news for BSD people looking for hardware from workstations to huge servers." Built using BSD? Well, built for BSD rather. Interesting news for VA Linux; remember, competitors in the rearview mirror may be closer than they appear...
Given that BSD has the BSD licence, it friendly to the intellectual property concerns of big companies. The GPL is all about getting all source code published, and this does not match the adjenda of most companies with IP concerns.Here's what it boils down to for me (and I'm sure for others): given a choice between a license that is friendly to big companies and a license that is friendly to me, I'll go with option #2. That is the GPL, and that is why Linux is successful and BSD will never be as popular among free development communities.
The rest of your trolling about competition? Well... it is a blatant troll, so I really shouldn't respond, but if you don't think that competition (either amongst the Linuxes or between Linux and BSD) improves the breed, then you haven't seen RH's new installer. Or Gnome 1.2 and KDE 2.0. Or any number of other things. Competition works, and Linux is case #1 for why we need Unix #3. And Unix #4 (in the HURD.) And whatever else comes next. Bring 'em on.
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
Insightful? This is not insightful. This is flamebait. Yes, the vast number of distros can get a little bit chaotic. But the competition between them all undeniably improves them, which this guy doesn't seem to understand. None of the BSDs would have a functional desktop if the various Linux distros hadn't been so "chaotic" that they produced Gnome and KDE. Where is that complete newbie friendly installer? Hrm... well, that was the result of competition too- RH and Corel's need to get ahead. Go ahead, call it chaos. I'm sure the uni-cellular creatures in the primary ooze were thinking much the same when some things decided to go multi-cellular. That was chaos too... look where it got us.
In conclusion: insightful? Are you on the $3 crack? Or the more expensive kind?
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
... And they're OK, but our 2Us don't have hot-swap drives and the redundant powersupplies are fed by a single power cord instead of one cord per supply like Compaq's 1850R.. Kinda important if your datacenter has 2 separate power mains running into each rack and you want to remove a SPOF... Kinda pricey to blow those options IMHO, and for 1 extra U I'm quite tempted to stick with Compaq and its 6 hotswap drives..
:p ) I'm leaning towards IBM, Compaq or VA (or HP's LPr, but I think they're kinda, uh, ugly).. Any other suggestions for an enterprise buyer?
btw: telenet won't play nice with our financing dept (lease terms) so we're switching linux/bsd server vendors. Our purchaser wants us to go with Dell but I refuse because of questionable RAID drivers (and an aversion to Dell by nature), so I've got them down to selecting a preferred linux/bsd server vendor.. Any experience outside of VA? (apparently penguin can't do the terms we want either
Your Working Boy,
We have large numbers of both FreeBSD and Linux (and Solaris) boxes in production.
... but when I worked there last year not a single Linux box was in production use. In fact the only machine I saw running it was a Sparc sitting unused at the Santa Clara offices.
I assume you mean Yahoo
The European server farm was running nothing but FreeBSD (version 2.2.7 as I recall), altough I assume stuff like the personalisation database was running on Solaris.
So where have Yahoo started using Linux (if you're allowed to say)? I was always told David Filo considered Linux to be crap, based on his brief encounter with it - and FreeBSD was now too entrenched to be replaced.
Chris Wareham
The USB code is nice, which is why, of course, I run NetBSD on my laptop. :)
I think the turning point was around the time when bus_space got integrated. Drivers have come out faster since then.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Sure, just like there's no market for sparcs with solaris pre-installed, because everyone wants to buy their own sparc (you can get them separately) and then install the OS. :)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
BSD/OS has SMP, too, and has for quite some time. :)
SMP is a really neat feature, but I admit it's not that heavily used; frankly, I'd guess 90% of the people I talk to don't need it and don't care.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I don't see how this counts as "buying" the competition. BSDi wasn't in the hardware business before. :)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Note to the clueless: The above is a joke, not flamebait, not a troll, and not "offtopic" in context. It's funny. Laugh.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Interesting. As one of the support staff, I actually *prefer* email; I generally have much better luck troubleshooting via email, because people cut and paste. Exact error messages are very useful.
;)
:)
This is probably less of a problem with experienced techies, but with the newer sysadmins, it's almost impossible to understand problems from the descriptions you get.
I do like to think we're fairly knowledgable, though. Glad to know we give a decent impression to the customers.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Keep in mind, the entire *company* isn't in that little building. There are at least four of us in Minneapolis/Saint Paul, and I know a number of other people who are distributed around the world; we even have an engineer in Norway.
Telecommute rocks.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I didn't say I hated OpenBSD. Read my post again. Like Debian, it's developership *tends* towards extreme arrogance, but that does not detract from the OS.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
"em>Although I suppose that another merger between two internet companies is the best example of competition."
It isn't competition that causes mergers, buyouts and takeovers. It publically traded corporations. When you put your business up for sale to any and all comers, don't be surprised or angry when it's gets purchased. And that's what a public corporation is, a company perpetually up for sale.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
"given a choice between a license that is friendly to big companies and a license that is friendly to me, I'll go with option #2."
Okay folks, I'm getting tired of this, so I'll flame a bit...
If you would stop kissing Stallman's but for just one minute, you will see that those are NOT your two choices! Have you even read the BSD license? Do you even know how to read?
Here are your two choices: a) a license that is friendly to big companies and also friendly to you b) a license that is friendly only to you. Now, RMS may have loaded your head with spurious definitions of fairness, but in my book you can only be fair when you treat everyone the same. There is a reason why Lady Justice is portrayed blindfolded.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Who the hell moderated Bruce's post down? Get a clude dudes! It was a valid opinion, on topic and insightful. Who cares if it was wrong? Anyway...
I don't see some of these distros co-existing very well at all. Sorry to say, your distro is the worst offender in the "getting along" department. I quick trip through your mailing lists will give you ample evidence. (When will you guys quit spilling over into the opensource and kde lists? Geez, it's like the ending scene of Blazing Saddles when the barroom brawl breaks through the wall and into the sedate lounge) Unlike your distro, FreeBSD does not consider itself the One True OS or a haven of indignant moral superiority. True, the BSD community has a splinter as rancorous and self-righteous as Debian, namely OpenBSD, so I guess licensing doesn't have much to do with it after all.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I worked for an ISP that was acquired by an electric company. The IT department was filled with old school pro IBM staff. The guys in the suits wanted accountability and support. I often got the impression no one wanted to take the blame and they did not want to work very hard so they strived for support contracts and having someone else to blame. Enter the ISP...
For the aforementioned reasons, the overseeing manager picked BSDi and their somewhat heafty support contract. I believe the contract was around $2500 a year. And since BSDi recommended servers from Telenet, the same manager went with Telenet servers.
A struggling startup ISP would have gone with FreeBSD and a put-together-yourself Intel Box and had similar performance for a lot less money. The BSDi contract was somewhat useless as you have to go through the usual ticket troubleshooting que or wait for an email response. It is just too difficult to troubleshoot problems through email.
Now having said that. I must say that the help staff at BSDi were very knowledgeable when you did get a hold of one of them. Also, the systems from Telenet were of good quality. And they were very responsive to RMA's and getting replacements shipped overnight. Back when we ordered systems from them, they also put pre-installed Linux and Windows NT on their boxes.
No HOWTO's, but many resources do exist. Here are the resources for FreeBSD:
1) Resources for Newbies
2) FreeBSD Tutorials
3) Frequently Asked Questions for FreeBSD 2.X, 3.X and 4.X
4) FreeBSD Handbook
5) FreeBSD Hypertext Man Pages
>Is BSD really needed?
/., redhatisnotlinux.org.
BSD is the 'second' Unix. AT&T is the 1st. So, why is a 3rd Unix - Linux needed? Consider Sun built their company on BSD, and Apple is moving to BSD. To date, what does Linux have to show for it? A bunch of high flying IPO's and little profit.
>It seems that so much effort is being thrown into Linux that too me it would make sense that Linux will emerge on top eventually by the sheer development/advancement effort thrown into it.
What do you mean by this? Do you mean things like GNOME? Or GIMP? Or sendmail? If so, guess what....all of these are on BSD.
>Does Linux really need more "competition" besides trying to compete against the Redmond giant?
150+ different Linux distro shows how Linux has its own problems with "competition". An example of this 'problem' is shown by the web site featured on
Linux is too busy "competing" with itself. If you feel that BSD development is a waste of time due to the 'sheer development' of Linux, then you should be wailing about how Linux has so many versions.
Given that BSD has the BSD licence, it friendly to the intellectual property concerns of big companies. The GPL is all about getting all source code published, and this does not match the adjenda of most companies with IP concerns.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
>Linux is a decentralized development model.
Yea, with the 150+ linux distros its not decentralized, it is chaos.
Programs that work with one linux distro won't work with another.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
well since redhat has a root exploit a week... I'll stick with my "3 years without a remote root exploit" OpenBSD.
Hotmail runs of FreeBSD.
ftp.cdrom.com runs of FreeBSD.
many ISP's run FreeBSD.
NetBSD works on everything.
yes EVERYTHING.
there are a gazillion linux distributions out now, but i only know of 3 that support sparc. OpenBSD and NetBSD support Sparc...
Linux has it strong points though. Slack is a tight distro, and its the closest to Unix that I know of.
Linux makes a great desktop OS and has many more applications that *BSD lacks. But seriously...No linux distro has such a focus like OpenBSD's security, FreeBSD's scalability, or NetBSD's portability.
FreeBSD isn't as secure as Open or Net, it only supports x86 and alpha, but its the only one with SMP at the moment. Do you see the strengths and weaknesses im pointing out? if you do...
...*BSD has its uses, just like BeOS has its uses, as well as Linux. The BOTTOM LINE is that one isn't "better" than the other...its which one is best suited for the job. even RedHat has a use...its good for newbies who don't want to jump straight into full blown *nix.
Chaos, Mayhem, and Destruction: Not
Only FreeBSD has SMP, but the others are working on it as we speak. I agree with the bloatware statement. When i first tried Linux...i used RedHat. My dumb newbie ass installed everything and had everything run on startup. scary isn't it. I can fit a full OpenBSD install on a 250 hard drive with 32megs of swap and still have enough space for a few mp3's.
Chaos, Mayhem, and Destruction: Not
Remember when Linux was small and it was run by people? Before all the IPO crazyness, the shelves full of distributions, and all the crazy hype?
Now look at which free *nix's still keep a small and tight distribution.
RedHat, you'd think they invented the buffer overflow.
Mandrake, wait. i already mentioned RedHat.
Corel, windows with a linux kernel. riiiight.
SuSe, not even gonna comment.
FreeBSD, not yet. but its bound to end up like those above.
so whats left? Slackware, Debian, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and a handful of others.
Sure the big distro's are pushing free *nix forward, but why'd we start it all in the first place? To have a unix-like system that everyone could get. Not to sell out to the big companies, not to sell t-shirts, not to sell mugs or shot glasses either. Microsoft was a little grass roots company once too. So i'm not too happy for all these buy-outs and mergers. You're supposed to make companies, not buy them. You're supposed to beat the competiton, not buy them. blah blah. im done
Chaos, Mayhem, and Destruction: Not
Here's a funny little story: I hit "post", looked at the clock here (4:18 AM I think), went to sleep. Woke up at about 11:00, and thought, "Hey, I wonder if my post has any replies!"
Come into my server room, the WAN light on my poor little Cisco is convulsing uncontrollably; my site is down (of course)...
Anyway, from one simple four o'clock in the morning post, I got one flame, one joke, one post trying to justify the aforementioned joke, a denial-of-service attack, and one real, honest-to-goodness actual response! Pretty good, hunh?
And to think that some people say the *BSD "community" is just a bunch of 'leet snobs...I haven't the foggiest where they'd get that idea. ;-)
Anyway, I think I'll try to run the Slash code on OpenBSD... hopefully if I have problems, I can find people (like Les) who can help. Thanks again!
Free music from Jack Merlot.
Although I suppose that another merger between two internet companies is the best example of competition. But the competition between Linux and FreeBSD will probably benefit both. Just like the competion between M$ and Linux could bring out the best of both.
This is just a vague generalizing post. I just felt the need to quote Q-Tip.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
I like the fact that there are several strong players in this market, not to sound like the republican pig, but it will strenghen the products overall, help hold the costs dwn and most of all give us some additional realistic choices. I'm happy for BSDi, there are some really top notch folks over there and it's nice to seem them conitinuing to be a strong player in the field. Not to mention how good this is for Colorado Springs, which although seems like "South Denver" it's actually not, it's still a small town and needs the employers to be strong to keep the local economy going.
Two very obvious reasons leap to mind:
;-).
1) the free-er BSD license -- do whatever you want
with the code, just give credit where it's due
2) superior networking performance -- I'm an admin
for one of the 10 largest sites on the web. We
have large numbers of both FreeBSD and Linux (and
Solaris) boxes in production. To be perfectly
honest, FreeBSD is the fastest, most reliable,
most configurable OS I have encountered so far.
I run Linux at home for no particular reason other
than I'm too lazy to switch; however I have found
that FreeBSD offers so many compelling advantages
as a single-purpose server that I deploy mostly
FreeBSD boxes where there is not a compelling
application forcing us to use Linux or Solaris.
And I'll probably switch over to FreeBSD at home,
too, maybe waiting until 4.1 comes out to be safe.
On laptops and such it makes sense to run Linux;
on a firewall, OpenBSD. But for maximum performance on web and mail servers, FreeBSD rocks
the house. Don't take my word for it -- try it
yourself. Many of the Apache and Qmail developers
run FreeBSD as their primary platform, and that's
not an easy bunch to impress.
FreeBSD is to Linux as Postgres is to MySQL
(which would bring us next to Solaris -> Oracle)
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.