FreeBSD 4.1 Released

Dr. Banana writes "Jordan Hubbard announced that FreeBSD 4.1 is now available on ftp.freebsd.org. You can read the release notes here. The ISO will be available on August 1."

Comments

Mother-son-of-a-bitch!

[Mullen]

I just got done upgrading a couple of servers to 4.0-stable, now 4.1 is out!

I wish they would not release anything for atleast 60 days after I buy it/install it/upgrade it!

I should have majored in Art, where nothing changes for atleast 20 years and the old stuff gets more valuable!

Re:Mother-son-of-a-bitch!

[softsign]

4.0-stable? When did you last update your source tree? I was under the impression that 4.1-stable had been available for the last little while. In which case, there's no point really in updating to 4.1-release aside from cosmetic reasons.

I just did a cvsup of my 4.0-release a few days ago, and it defaulted to 4.1-stable.

--

BSD and GNU utilities

[11223]

The csh(1) shell has been replaced by tcsh(1), although it can still be run as csh(1).

The more(1) command has been replaced by less(1), although it can still be run as more(1).

I see they're getting with the GNU bandwagon, but I hope that the original BSD sources for csh, more, etc. get kept somewhere for posterity - when/if all BSD's switch to using GNU userland software, we lose the original BSD software, which wouldn't be a good thing.

I wonder if it could still be made an option to have a FreeBSD 4.1 kernel without the GNU utilities but with original BSD utilities. Anybody from FreeBSD care to comment?

Re:BSD and GNU utilities

[Zigg]

As long as the CVS repository is still around, you can always check them out. I know FreeBSD's goes back to 2.0, which was the first unencumbered-by-AT&T release.

Re:BSD and GNU utilities

[Silver A]

The more(1) command has been replaced by less(1), although it can still be run as more(1).

I consider this a mistake. On my Linux system at home, less is more useful than more, but more has its place. In particular, ls -l --color | less is ugly on the terminal and various xterms, while ls -l --color | more looks like it's supposed to.

I suppose that trying to keep the distribution compact is a justification for some of these replacements, but the old commands should be kept around, even if not installed by default. Someone, somewhere, may need to use both csh and tcsh, without the one substituted for the other. What's next, dropping vi for emacs?

Re:BSD and GNU utilities

[jemfinch]

Neither 'less' nor 'tcsh' are GPL'ed.

Please, check your facts before you complain--it's as simple as going to the ports tree and doing a 'make'.

'less' is licensed as follows (from LICENSE):

Less Copyright (C) 1984-2000 Mark Nudelman Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

and 'tcsh' is licensed as follows (from README):

Feel free to use it. These changes to csh may only be included in a commercial product if the inclusion or exclusion does not change the purchase price, level of support, etc. Please respect the individual authors by giving credit where credit is due (in other words, don't claim that you wrote portions that you haven't, and don't delete the names of the authors from the source code or documentation).

Please, check your facts before posting.

Jeremy

Re:BSD and GNU utilities

[longword]

ls -l --color | less is ugly on the terminal and various xterms

Try ls -l --color | less -r instead. Maybe even alias it.

Paul.

Re:BSD and GNU utilities

[Guy Harris]

Oops - I must have thought otherwhise, but what I meant is that they're adopting a lot of the software the Linux community worked on.

...and that, I suspect, people outside "the Linux community" worked on as well.

Do tcsh and less antedate Linux? Even if they don't, were they originally done for Linux, or were they done for other UNIXes instead or as well?

If the answer to either of those questions is "yes", then saying "they're adopting a lot of the software the Linux community worked on" may be technically true, but may not necessarily be equivalent to "getting with the GNU bandwagon" or "switching to using GNU userland software" even if you reinterpret "GNU" in your original message as meaning "Linux", so, no, I do not believe that particular idea of your original post still stands.

I'm not sure that "we lose the original BSD software, which wouldn't be a good thing" applies either, if by "lose" you mean "don't have it available as part of the system" (as opposed to "the source is unavailable" - as noted, the source is still available in the CVS tree). I don't see csh as being preferable to tcsh, or more as being preferable to less, merely by virtue of being the implementation that came with older versions of BSD - the BSDs have changed a number of things, over time, from "the original BSD software" in the sense of, say, "what came with 4.4-Lite", but I don't view that as being ipso facto A Bad Thing.

There may be other reasons to prefer csh or more, but there are probably reasons why, for arbitrary piece of code XXX in release N of operating system YYY, some people might prefer alternative ZZZ, where alternative ZZZ might have been there instead of XXX in release N-k. So it goes....

Re:BSD and GNU utilities

[Arandir]

That's not the point. Try being a user. When I type in "more" I want to see "more" behavior.

Re:BSD and GNU utilities

[Arandir]

I don't think that deserved a flame

Well, you did say *GNU* which in the context of BSD is guaranteed to push people's hot buttons. If you were concerned about FreeBSD changing some of their old tried-and-true utilities, then you should have said so. But when you say that FreeBSD is dumping BSD stuff for GNU stuff, you deserved all the flamage you got. I mean, you don't call the Pope a Mormon and then expect to get away with it!

Excellent!

[Kailden]

* FreeBSD 4.1 can now be installed on an IPv6-only network - this will be the first release of FreeBSD that never needs to operate using IPv4 at all! ftp7.jp.freebsd.org (Listed as Japan #7 in sysinstall) is an IPv6-reachable mirror site for installation and package-fetching

The revolution has begun! IPV6-->and you thought the internet was already big enough.

BSD

[Dungeon Dweller]

I love how people always say, "BSD did nice" in benchmarks and such. BSD has a long, strong tradition. I'm not knocking on Linux, but if you want REAL UNIX, this comes from the original source. This IS UNIX, the kernel is where it's at. It's stable, strong, and a GREAT operating system. Also, it can run Linux binaries and the binaries for SEVERAL OS's. If you haven't checked BSD out, this is a good place to start. I suggest that EVERYONE out there grabs an ISO. Those of you who use slack will be familiar with BSD fairly quickly, as Slack strives to be as true to BSD unix as possible. It's very minimalistic in nature as well. The idea is to add the software you want, not just take away from software that you already installed. Have an operating system, and know what you are installing on it. BSD is a great system, you should all check it out.

Slashdot.org cluster

[Delirium Tremens]

I seem to remember that some of Slashdot servers are running FreeBSD. Since Slashdot (community) is generally Linux centric, I wonder what technical superiority does FreeBSD have over Linux. No flame, just curious.

Then, if this post is no longer valid, I still would like to know why FreeBSD was used in the past. Thanks, --

Re:Slashdot.org cluster

[Amokscience]

Someone else will no doubt come along and give more detail but the FreeBSD used to have much superior networking than other OSes. That's not the case anymore as most everyone has 'caught up'. It was also used by and developed by a lot of people in the ISP/networking business (i386 and alpha ports).

It's also centrally organized with a strong core team which gives it focus and prevents a lot of splintering (exceptions being Net and Open which are strongly focussed in their own right). I suppose some consider this to be a drawback but most people seem happy with the end products.

Also it has a great ports system where people maintain src and binary pacakges for easy installation. I've seen the Debian package system and it's exactly like that. Not sure which came first but BSD is where I first saw it. You install a hierachry of application skeletons. The it's run by a system of Makefiles. You want openssh on your system? You go to /usr/ports/security/openssh and type make install. It will download teh source and any dependencies and compile build, install and register man pages etc. All from one command, incredibly neat. You can also do binaries using the pkg_add command.

More info at http://www.freebsd.org/ports/

You can also upgrade your whole system via cvsup. Similar in simplicity to the ports collection you automatically download any sources that are needed and diff and patch things until your system is upgraded.

Lots of info at http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/

There's also NetBSD and OpenBSD which focu on running on multiple architectures and security respectively. They're all great server OSes imo.

Re:Slashdot.org cluster

[qnonsense]

"All the boxes are VA Linux Systems FullOns running Debian"

That's a direct quote from http://slashdot.org/faq/tech.shtml. Slashdot has never run on FreeBSD. Yahoo does though.

Re:Slashdot.org cluster

[Jesse Shrieve]

This is false. Half of Slashdot's servers used to be FreeBSD. Two Linux, two FreeBSD. I know, because I ran them. I won't bother joining in on the war of why Linux or why FreeBSD. Others can do that pretty well.

Re:FreeBSD...

[NetJunkie]

The ipf how-to covers this as well as the book "Building Linux and OpenBSD Firewalls". Both of these are excellent reads. The HOW-TO is at http://www.obfuscation.org/ipf/ipf-howto.html

Re:FreeBSD...

[Brandon Hume]

Try:

block in on ed1 all
pass in on ed1 proto tcp from any to any port = 21 keep state
pass out on ed1 all keep state

I don't believe passing incoming on port 20 is terribly useful, since that's the ORIGINATING port for ftp-data (it connects OUT, not in).

Also, you might find it useful to use a 'pass in quick from /32 to any' at the top of the file, until you get the rules sorted out.

There's extensive documention that comes with IPFilter, you shoudl check it out. Once you know how to use it, you'll see how ipchains and ipfw are pale imitators.
--
Brandon Hume
hume -> BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca, http://WWW.BOFH.Halifax.NS.Ca/

Nah...

[Anonymous Coward]

I get lots of Free BSD's already with Windows.

Re:BSD and GNU true utility

[B-Rad]

Well, since they're replacing more with less, it would stand to reason that they're replacing true with false.

But my question is...

[Sir_Winston]

When is *BSD going to get as easy to install as Linux? I'd gladly take it for a test drive, but installing it is such a chore. I always thought install routines should be the easiest part of getting an OS up and running, with tweaking later being the most time-consuming part, but last I heard about *BSD you set up, get dumped to a command line, and then have to manually set up X. Yuck. Has this changed in recent releases, or is there an option to configure X during install yet? I'm not asking for some shiny graphical install routine, just something as user-friendly as Mandrake 6.0, with its lists of choices for setting up X if you want X. I tell ya, if there's one nice thing about Solaris, it's that the CDE desktop gets installed by default and it works like a charm with no black magic needed... :-)

Re:But my question is...

[Snocone]

When is *BSD going to get as easy to install as Linux?

In early 2001.

Re:But my question is...

[questionlp]

The sysinstall in FreeBSD is very easy to install (a couple of my friends liked the text/menu based install for FreeBSD better than RedHat's install, and even over OpenLinux's GUI-based installer) and has an option during the setup to configure X using either the command line or through X itself.

The sysinstall program is very easy and allows you to customize your install the way you want it.

Re:But my question is...

[Teferi]

In my experience, FreeBSD 4.0-RELEASE was actually easier to install than Debian Slink -OR- Potato.
On a LAPTOP, none the less.
It autoprobed my PCMCIA NIC, which both Debian installers threw up their hands at. fdisk and disklabel have 'Do it for me' settings. There's more than adequate documentation for each step, and although I had some issues due to my laptop's BIOS permenantly having LBA on, they were quickly resolved.
On a slightly offtopic note, IMHO, the ports tree is superior to ALL linux packaging systems, even apt/dpkg.

"If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.

Re:But my question is...

[Teferi]

I have no problem with apt/dpkg - my Linux box runs debian, and I love it, too.
I haven't had to try with a major upgrade; my BSD box suffered severe hardware failure a few weeks ago; bad luck. But I imagine it's up to the job...

"If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.

Re:But my question is...

[jandrese]

try pkg_delete(1), and the ports tree will automatically handle dependancies like new glibc. You can also just make a component and install it (by using cd to go to the directory and typing make and make install).

Re:But my question is...

[jallen02]

Could just be me but there are no pretty graphics But the FreeBSd setup in 3.3 is extremely easy.

Feed it a couple of boot disks have the CD Rom In Drive.

It has nice menu's to configure devices and nicely tells you where conflcits are with IO ports...

This makes setting up something like ohh.. a NIC pretty cinchy. It has always easily found my 3Com card with the GENERIC Kernel.

Compiling the Kernel is like edit a file added a couple of lines.. typed in one command It went

There is also no way to really write over your kernel and then get locked out since at boot time you can just tell it to use a different kernel.

So is it easier to install for a newbie? Yes.

Is there documentation that explains a lot of these features and guides you through it... Not really.

I would say with just a little more decent documentation there would never be a need for GUI Installer. If you know the basics of the hardware you are setting up its very easy.

If you are talking a transition from a "I dont know what a serial port" windows/linux crowd who somehow managed to get either OS installed.. No your just gonna wipe out your partitions

Anyhow.. If you ahve installed a Linux distro and used it for a while and then you move to BSD you will fin dthat its generally easier to use than xyz Linux distro.

You want a program and you have the CD? "/stand/sysinstall" Install the package I imagine this release has KDE 2, Gnome 1.2 and all. They stay update on all of those packages.

You a program? /usr/ports find it type "make install" it downloads all the dependencies it needs and just works, no RPM hell, or weird ass commands it just goes.

Lets just say it significantly cut down on the time I spent downloading libraries and compiling this and that to get Applications working to the point where it is now pretty much all I use at home for a Server.(Given that my needs are somewhat limited ;)

Jeremy


If you think education is expensive, try ignornace

Re:But my question is...

[softsign]

It depends on what you think are "tricky" dependency issues. In nearly all cases, ports will download all required dependencies and install them too. If there's some weird configuration problem you have, or if you need some older library to stay, then ports gives you the flexibility to work around that: unlike rpms.

Ports is basically something that holds your hand through the usually frustrating task of

find the latest source for what you need
download
configure
download missing libs
configure
download another dependency
(repeat)
configure
make
fix makefile to work on your *nix
make
make install

It handles all the dependencies beautifully. It applies patches that ensure your make will run smoothly. In short, it's a huge timesaver.

Not only that, but it also registers installs, so removing stuff is easy. All you need to do is go into the port directory and type 'make deinstall' or even a pkg_delete.

--

kewl

[happystink]

when r they gunna have a version for Linux?

:)

sig:

Already out of date...

[slothbait]

And my 4.0 CD is supposed to be arriving in the mail today. Foo.

Still...who am I to resist the march of technology?

Anyway, I'm dipping my toe in the FreeBSD pool by installing on an old laptop I came by. I've been digging around for information on how FreeBSD handles laptop issues like power management and PCMCIA, but haven't found much yet. The BSD nomads pages are pretty large, but pretty out of date as well.

Anyone out there have any advice or pointers on FreeBSD on (i386) laptops?

--Lenny

Re:Already out of date...

[JatTDB]

I've done a few installs of FreeBSD on my own laptop and others, and it's certainly a lot easier than it used to be. The number of PCMCIA devices supported and the APM stuff is much improved from the first time I tried to do this (around 2.2.3). The default values for the PCMCIA stuff works in most cases, and just changing the IRQ/base addrs to one of the other suggested values works in all the others I've experienced. My advice would be to try it and see what happens...and if it doesn't work, there's always the mailing lists (and one dedicated to FreeBSD on laptops, too).

Re:Already out of date...

[softsign]

You really shouldn't have any problems. FreeBSD has PnP, APM and PCMCIA support built-in.

My experience with it has been wonderful. On my desktop, I have an SBLive and struggled for a while to get OSS working with 4.0-release. Then, I looked around a little and realized that support for the emu10k had already been dropped in to 4.1-stable. All it took was a cvsup, make world and a new kernel to get my SBLive working flawlessly.

This doesn't really apply to laptops of course, but it's an indication of how smoothly FreeBSD works. Frankly, I'd be surprised if you ran into any real difficulties unless you're running some very obscure hardware.

--

Re:So what's new?

[bsletten]

Noone has mentioned this yet:

A new event notification facility called kqueue was added to the
FreeBSD kernel. This is a new interface which is able to replace
poll/select, offering improved performance, as well as the ability
to report many different types of events. Support for monitoring
changes in sockets, pipes, fifos, and files are present, as well as
for signals and processes.

Re:An answer

[softsign]

Enlightenment is a 10 meg package... so it's quite possible it got dropped from the CD for size reasons. It IS available if you install packages via FTP server.

--

gnuls -l --color

[mosch]

Then you should try using the colour option correctly. Memory fails me, but one of the below is right:

ls --color=auto
ls --color=tty

I forget which of these is correct (a few years ago, the situation was such that one of these matched the man page, and the other matched actual behavior).

----------------------------

Re:An answer

[mosch]

Make sure you have an up to date /usr/ports, then cd /usr/ports/x11-wm/enlightenment && make install

There you go, done. Oh, and the procedure for sawfish is cd /usr/ports/x11-wm/sawfish && make install

----------------------------

Re:So what's new?

[sporty]

Um, IPv6 has been everpresent in 4.x. its usable as an install feature in 4.1 for the first time. if you wanted ipv6 in 4.0, you needed to recompile, which for any fbsd'er.. is not normal. Most curren't fbsd'ers might cvsup to newest sources..

Silly package users ;>

---

Re:Drivers?

[softsign]

I've already posted this elsewhere in this topic, but until now, my only unsupported piece of hardware in FreeBSD was my SBLive. Not anymore. Although I think ALSA has also added SBLive support to its list for Linux.

Hell, FreeBSD even detects my MS Sidewinder USB joystick!

Gotta love it... the least you can do is try it out. The install is painless.

--

Hey troll

[mosch]

Well, it's the first of the 4.X series that's recommended for widespread public consumption. 4.0 bore warnings against production use. This means that it's the first endorsed FreeBSD which contains such things as SMP support, really good USB support (3.X has USB support, but it required about an hours worth of reading to get my mouse and keyboard working, as opposed to 4.X which just sort of worked). Install it on a machine somewhere and see what's special for yourself. You might like what you find.
----------------------------

Re:Hey troll

[bugg]

4.1 was not the first "endorsed FreeBSD" release that had SMP support, 3.1 was.

Re:BSD lacks native software.

[swdunlop]

I just have to laugh at /any/ Linux user who makes that 'lacks native software' comment. Could you /please/ consider not copying Microsoft marketing? ;) I personally like FreeBSD, because it has a different focus than Linux.. Linux tries to drag everything into the kernel, and be everything for everyone, while the BSDs tend to focus more on making a solid networking and multitasking OS that behaves nicely on common hardware. And.. Finally.. For the record, Messr Anonymous Troll, FreeBSD can quite happily run those precompiled Linux binaries you're so addicted to, 99.5% of the time, so long as they're userland apps. (No, your tcl/tk-based ipchains configuration app isn't going to work.)

4.1 BSD

[jetson123]

That numbering is pretty funny, if somewhat confusing. 4.1 BSD for the VAX was probably the first "real", "modern" version of BSD UNIX. 4.2 then incorporated much of the networking code. The PDP-11 versions of BSD UNIX at around the same time had 2.x version numbers.

Re:Hardware support Documentation

[Guy Harris]

What ever nice points FreeBSD has, good sound card support is NOT one of them. The best solution is to get an extra box with an OS that works with your sound card.

Fortunately, I already have two OSes on my home machine that work with my sound card...

...FreeBSD 3.x and NT 4.0.

It's a plug-and-play ISA sound card (I saw no reason to get a PCI sound card when there was a spare ISA slot), and I didn't particularly feel like banging on isapnptools or jam a PnP ISA patch into the 2.0[.x] kernel on my Debian 2.1 partition to get the sound card to work - or to shove a 2.2[.x] kernel and jam in the patch, or shove a 2.3[.x] kernel on it - given that it worked out of the box on BSD. (It also looked like More Trouble Than It Was Worth to get it to work on the machine's fourth OS, Solaris 7.)

I.e., when it comes to hardware support, the important phrase here is "your mileage may vary"; categorical statements about FreeBSD and/or Linux support may, even if valid in general (as in "more sound cards are supported by the Linux 2.x.y kernel than by the FreeBSD m.n kernel", which I suspect may be the case for most reasonable values of "x", "y", "m", and "n", although I could be surprised) may not apply in all cases.

Re:So what's new?

[questionlp]

One nice addition to 4.1-RELEASE is the support for the Dell PERC, PERC2/SC and the PERC2/DC RAID controllers. Support for the Adaptec RAID controllers is still in the works, but people have gotten the older SmartRAID and SmartCache IV, plus some of the Compaq RAID controllers to work as well.

Re:FreeBSD is Dying.

[Vspirit]

the authors of those comments that you are quoting are either incompetent or non existing.

I am a new to running unixes on my local systems.
I installed FreeBSD 4.0stable less than a week ago on my laptop. Now I run 4.1stable and keeping a fresh updated system, automatically. This is my story. First I downloaded the kernel and mfsroot disks which I found through a logical visit at www.freebsd.org. I had a problem with my nic at first (I was doing a ftp/net installation off the boot disks), but after a few minutes browsing of freebsd - mobile and friendly chats at #freebsdhelp I solved it and the freebsd installation ran beautifully. At the installation I had a clear list of choice for the base setup and I chose what suited my purpose. I chose to install X with gnome&enlightment and in a short time I was up and running. Tweaked the X setup to present my desktop as I enjoy and that was set. Next I intented to see how I have to go about maintenance and here again usenet and #freebsdhelp on efnet became quite useful. I learned about cvsup with which I could keep my sourcetree and ports updated, so now I can either issue a few commmands in which I can check for updates to the sources, do a system update of the entire system build a new custom kernel for optimal performance and install or do it all in one script which I eventually intend to activate via cron... so the system updates itself and I can concentrate on my work.

With this system I finally see a future with computing as a solution to accomplish whatever purpose one may have.

Unix in whatever form or shap it may be is the cure for Microsofts deceases which have hurt so many for so long without them knowing it and many still don't. Now think of narcotics. Do you see a pathern?. Unix, as any cure it is not successful before being spread and I certainly hope the entire world of unixes would help doing so. It is not important whether you run *linux, *bsd, solaris, whatever.. as long as you can do the same on all systems and they become compatible with each other as they will do eventually, when we start doing something about it. All unixes are in the process of making this new bright world and everyone can contribute. The Open* world of development is a result of people fighting for freedom and making things right, making them how they were supposed to be in the first place. After all its not about computers its about what you use it for.
freedom for choice, possibilities for all!

Upgrading and version numbers.

[Lazaru5]

-STABLE is a constantly moving target. Starting with 4.0-RELEASE, it was known as 4.0-STABLE. At any given point in time, you can get the latest sources via CVS (CVSup being the best way) and make world and get a *newer* 4.0-STABLE. They in fact take daily (or near enough) snapshots and make them available via FTP (releng4.freebsd.org.)

This much you know already. If you don't, you do now.

When it's decided that it's time for a -RELEASE, the minor version number is bumped and (in this case) 4.1-RELEASE is born. About 5 minutes later (check the CVS logs) 4.1-STABLE is born. There's no such thing as having 4.1-STABLE before 4.1-RELEASE. The official announcement of 4.1-RELEASE just came a few days after it's creation. (In reality, for a few days before a -RELEASE there are a few -RC [Release Candidates].)

So if by last little while you mean 3 days, yeah, but you're already beyond 4.1-RELEASE.

A serious question:

[Wakko Warner]

Why is there a FreeBSD 3.4, 3.5, 4.x, *and* 5.x *all* being worked on?

Don't get me wrong: I like FreeBSD. I use FreeBSD at work and at home. I just want to know what the point is of all the different versions being worked on at once? It's getting downright confusing.

- A.P.
--

"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

Re:Question on the ports collection

[BitKat]

I'll bite (too much of a rabid fbsd-lover not to...)

- How many version numbers can you actually cross like this?

YMMV, but in my experience it works quite well. I'll make an exception for the a.out -> ELF transtion nightmare. That was bad. Rule-of-thumb: don't cross major version numbers. And read the mailing lists.

- What sorts of problems/pitfalls might the *BSD newbie run into trying this...?

Cryptic error messages. If you're not familiar with a platform, anything it throws at you will be cryptic. Not kidding: VMS sometimes really stumps me with trivial stuff. I just ask someone who has more experience. It's the way to learn.

- If your net connection is too slow/unreliable to even think about doing make world via the net

Irrelevant. You don't do a make world via the net. You do a make world from your local /usr/src which has been brought up-to-date by cvsup. Works quite beautifully over crappy Internet links.

The Safe Way

[Arandir]

The safe way to upgrade ANY system is to delete and reinstall. Unless of course you are a Good Little Citizen(tm) and did everything the distro's CEO told you to do.

The distribution does not know YOU. They don't know what software you installed outside of the package system. They don't know what configuration files you edited by hand. They don't know that package A is still needed by you even though it is deprecated in the upgrade.

Besides which, I've never found a distribution that upgraded without problems. With delete and install you have no problems.

Explanation.

[cmc]

3.5-STABLE is being eased back on (or already has been) as far as new features. For the most part, the only things going into 3.5 will be bug fixes. 4.1-STABLE will get new features that are considered stable, as well as bug fixes, and -CURRENT (5.x) will get all the evil things that could cause your computer to burst into flames, etc.

3.4 is just an older release of 3.x-STABLE. 3.5 is the most recent (and final) release on 3.x-STABLE, and 4.1 is the most recent release on 4.x-STABLE.

A Serious Question . . .

[Atypical Stranger]

. . . that is probably answered elsewhere.
As a linux user (Slackware -> Redhat (about 10min) -> SuSE -> Debian) what major changes would I have to make if I switched to *BSD.
Specifically is it source/binary compatible with linux.
Does it have a similar "feel" to linux, how hard would it be to adapt to it?
How does the hardware support compare? Will it run on the "typical" PC?
Does it have any advantage (speed, stability, security or other)?
Hopefully this won't incite a riot and hopefully I will get some answers. I just want to know if it's worth playing with.

Re:A Serious Question . . .

[softsign]

As a linux user...

Virtually none. BSD is Unix. To the end user, it may be difficult to tell that it's even a different OS. To the admin, there's obviously going to be a difference, simply because it's a whole other kernel and the system is wired differently. But really, I had a little Linux experience and a bit more experience as a Solaris user when I started using FreeBSD and it took me less than a day to set up a nat-ing firewall/gateway.

... major changes would I have to make?

Again, cosmetic, really. For whatever may be new to you, the man system is VERY thorough. I've seen manpages that list under BUGS "This man page is too long". =)

Specifically is it source/binary compatible with linux.

Source? It's just as source compatible as another Unix. Meaning, if your code will compile on IRIX or Solaris too... then it's pretty much a given that it will compile under FreeBSD. There are quite a few hacked programs out there that somebody may have written that will run only on Linux - but do you really need that software in the first place? Plus there's always Ports. If there's a port for the app you want (and chances are there is) then it WILL compile. =)

If you can't get the source for some app to compile, then FreeBSD does have Linux binary-compatibility. I believe it can even be compiled into the kernel. To be honest, I've never used it... simply because I haven't needed to.

Does it have a similar "feel" to linux, how hard would it be to adapt to it?

It's Unix! You can run your favourite shell, XFree86 with KDE or Gnome and Enlightenment (or any other combo under the sun). ls is ls, xterm is xterm, etc...

How does the hardware support compare? Will it run on the "typical" PC?

It's been said that Linux tends to support more of the bleeding-edge than FreeBSD. I don't know how true this is. FreeBSD has kernel-level support for PnP, PCMCIA, USB and a whole slew of other stuff. There isn't a piece of hardware in my system that isn't supported fully in FreeBSD.

On the "typical" PC, you should absolutely NO problems.

Does it have any advantage (speed, stability, security or other)?

This is kind of a contentious issue. There was an article a few days ago about this very issue. FreeBSD outperformed Linux at some disk access benchmarks, I believe. I don't put much stock in those tests though. I think it's fair to say that performance is, at the least, on par with any of the Linux distros.

Stability and security always depend on the admin. There are some rock-solid Linux boxes out there and there are some that can barely stay up for 20 minutes.

It's not fair to say that FreeBSD is more stable or secure, because it all depends on what services you need and run.

I just want to know if it's worth playing with.

IMHO, it is. You'll be pleasantly surprised. I installed FreeBSD 3.4-release on a whim when my Redhat installer failed on an old 486. I haven't gone back since. =)

--

Re:Upgrades

[Guy Harris]

FreeBSD has gone the low road, and instead of trying to implement a package system, they provide very clever makefiles that will download the source, 'fix' it, then compile.

That's certainly a way of installing software on FreeBSD, but I usually just do pkg_add -r package and have it download the binary package (and packages on which it depends) and install it/them. (If I care about the source, I'll download the original tarball and do the configure/make/make install myself, as I'm likely to care about the source because I want to change something, in which case I'll probably want to send it back, and patching the vanilla source rather than port-ized source seems as if it'd be a better idea.)

Re:So Hemos and Kadtz, time to deliver.

[Guy Harris]

I believe IP should be free.

Cool. Here's some free IP, and here's some more free IP, and here's some more free IP.

This page also lets you get at some free IP, although you have to go to one of the subdirectories, download and unpack the tarball, and get it from the appropriate directory (kernel/net/ipv4).

Delete install no prob?

[GMontag]

You do have that pesky "delete and install" problem itself.

I am trying to figure out what I want loaded on the 16 Meg SanDisk of a new I-Opener, scheduled for major surgery soon for a vehicle app, always powered always on, but using SanDisk for emergency disk.

Trying to figure out what to load there and looking at issues like future upgrades (SanDisk is not infinately re-writable).

Anyway, in general, I like fixing the mess from a delete/reinstall much less than the mess from an upgrade.

Re:So Hemos and Kadtz, time to deliver.

[Guy Harris]

This page also lets you get at some free IP, although you have to go to one of the subdirectories, download and unpack the tarball, and get it from the appropriate directory...

Here's that particular free IP in an easier-to-view form.

Re:Upgrades

[Guy Harris]

You can do all that with the ports by just typing 'make extract' to do everything up to extracting the sources in the work directory (then go into work/ and change whatever you want)

Why am I better off doing that than just extracting the tarball? (Note: "because it works with Berkeley make" would not be a valid answer - I've installed GNU make on my machine, which is what I get by default when building stuff, which, for me, is a feature.)

or 'make patch' to do everything up to the freebsd patches

If the original tarball needed patches to build on FreeBSD (other than patches to work with Berkeley make, which I don't care about), the changes should've been sent back to the maintainer of the package, so that future tarballs won't require that.

From there you can type 'make configure' or 'make' or 'make install', whatever.

If all I'm doing is make followed by make install, I'd go for the binary package.

Re:Why it is bad

[dcs]

AFAIK, both tcsh(1) and less(1) were imported under the BSD license.

Anyway, FreeBSD's more(1) was a very old version of less(1).

FreeBSD branches

[dcs]

Well, 3.4 and 3.5 and *not* being worked on. 3.x, 4.x and 5.x are.

FreeBSD uses CVS to manage source code. With CVS, every time you make a change to a file you wish to integrate, a new "version" of that file is created. You can retrieve any particular version of a file, generate diffs between versions, etc.

Now, the versions are numbered in ascending order, as you would expect, but multiple "branches" may exist. For instance, "current" is the HEAD branch, 4.x is RELENG_4, 3.x is RELENG_3,and so on. Each branch progresses independently. One can ask for the latest file of a particular branch. That's what 3.x-stable, 4.x-stable and 5.x-current are.

A release, such as 3.4-RELEASE, 3.5-RELEASE, 4.0-RELEASE or 4.1-RELEASE, is a point in time. We mark the latest version of all files in a particular with a tag, such as RELENG_4_0_0_RELEASE, and those files/version with that tag are the ones that compose a particular release.

Now, why work on more than one branch at the same time? First, let's see how work is done on FreeBSD.

There are different origins to the source code found in FreeBSD. Some of it are externally maintained programs, such as sendmail and bind. These are imported from time to time, when a particular version is deemed stable enough.

Other programs are also developed externally to FreeBSD, but their developers are also FreeBSD committers. These are usually updated on a regular basis. It's the case particularly of some device drivers, shared by FreeBSD and Linux or one of the other BSD. It is also the case of code being developed by companies who sell solutions using FreeBSD, and have internal patches.

Finally, there are the programs "local" to FreeBSD, who are constantly updated. The actual development is still done out of the FreeBSD tree, and only updated at points where the code is functional.

These updates are usually done on the HEAD branch, or current, which, right now, is known as 5.x-current. Because of the very nature of software development, this results in serious bugs from time to time, and even break down of the build process. That's why people should stay away from -current, generally speaking.

As the code matures, and particular versions are deemed safe, they are merged back on the latest stable branch, 4.x-stable. This includes new device drivers and bug fixes. New features are also added in some cases, but the general rule is to leave new stuff out of stable.

Now, when a current reaches a certain point, a new stable branch is created out of it. This branch is identical to current at that point in time, though it quickly starts to diverge. But since it WAS a current up to that time, the new stable isn't *rock* stable previous stable branches. This is the .0 syndronme.

Because of that, serious users avoid the .0 release, some avoid the .1 release, and some claim to avoid anything below .5, even.

These users expect their very reliable stable branch to continue to receive bug fixes and, particularly, security fixes. Thus, we, for a while, merge fixes to the latest two stable branches. Right now, 4.x and 3.x.

It's worth mention, though, that 3.x is at the end of it's life time, and won't be receiving many patches anymore.

Still, some people DO merge fixes all the way to 2.2.x. Usually, they have their own applications still based on such older versions, and like to keep them up to date. :-)

HTH.

Re:B*llshit

[dcs]

Netcraft says FreeBSD.

Of course, if you had ever read a press release from Walnut Creek, which, as you may recall, has merged with BSDi, you would know it runs FreeBSD.