FreeBSD 4.2 Is Out

Quite a number of people have e-mailed in the last bit about the release of FreeBSD 4.2. This is the release - you should try it out today, because CowboyNeal sez so, and he's currently updating it on his Vaio.

Comments

Quick link to the release notes / changelog

[StandardDeviant]

For those of you who might be curious and lazy, here's a quick link to the RELNOTE S.T XT for this release (i.e. the changelog/release notes).

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Re:Why not use Solaris instead?

[StandardDeviant]

Well, Solaris isn't exactly iron-clad in the security dept. by default. For that, it's OpenBSD hands down. If you need big iron, well, then you're probably running a proprietary Unix anyway (like irix for some huge SGI-based vis lab, AIX on some huge S/80 ibm db2 box, Solaris on some huge Sun Oracle box, etc.). Free unixen are IMHO best suited to the problem space addressed by bunches of ``little'' boxes (best hardware support there, anyway, and similar price structure), by little I mean <= 4 cpus and <= 2gb of ram... (i.e. web farms, render farms, distributed DB serving, workstations, etc)

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Re:BSD vs. Solaris - No, sun forked

[bluGill]

No, you have that wrong. Sun forked sunOS versions 1.0-4.x from BSD. BSD always was BSD, sunOS was the fork by sun. Suns lawyers never sued BSD. Currently sunOS is at version 5.x (I think they call it vesion 8 now, but it is still version 5) which is NOT based on the forked BSD code but rather based on the orginial AT&T code.

There were legal problems in the early battles, but they were caused by whoever owned unix at that time (AT&T yet? I'm not sure) BSD got around them by re-writing the code in question, and setteling. since BSD never has had (much) money the settelment wasn't a big deal.

Re:PCMCIA on BSD's

[jcs]

OpenBSD works great on laptops. USB, PCMCIA, APM, etc.

I have a page describing how to get OpenBSD running on two Sony Vaios.

Re:PCMCIA on BSD's

[AntiBasic]

FreeBSD pcmcia support isn't that great. The FreeBSD Japan group started PAO extentions for 3.x series but it hasn't really been merged in the 4.x branch. OpenBSD is the best for pcmcia support on notebooks though. Look into that.

Do yourself a favor: Try it

[f5426]

FreeBSD rocks. I used linux for 3 years. I tried FreeBSD 6 months ago, and felt in love with it.

The very very best thing about FreeBSD is the coherence of the whole. For instance, all the sources in /usr/src

/usr/src/sys: the kernel
/usr/src/bin: /bin directory
/usr/src/sbin: /sbin
/usr/src/usr.bin: /usr/bin
/usr/src/usr.sbin /usr/sbin
etc, etc

The sources of ls are in /usr/src/bin/ls
Wanna change and recompile ls ? Change /usr/bin/ls/ls., cd /usr/bin/ls and make install.

Wanna recompile the whole thing ?

cd /usr/src
make buildworld
make installworld
mergemaster (if config files have changed)
reboot

All the system is maintained under CVS. Want to upgrade the *whole* system to current version ?

cvsup -L 2 stable-supfile

Then make buildworld & installworld.

Almost all of the configuration is made in /etc/rc.conf

And there is the very clean port tree. About 4500 programs in /usr/ports, present in the form of patches to the original versions. For instance:

cd /usr/ports/graphics/gimp1
make install
[Downloads source of the gimp]
[Patches sources]
[Compile]
[Install]

Of course all needed libraries will be fetched/patched/compiled in the way.

And all the ports are in CVS too, so

cvsup -L 2 ports-supfile

will keep you up-to-date with latest ports

Everything in the system is very very nicely engineered. There is a vision here, not a collection of hacks.

Cheers,

--fred

Re:Do yourself a favor: Try it

[Howie]

And there is the very clean port tree.

The port tree is indeed very cool, as long as you stick within it. I spent a few annoying hours yesterday trying to convince various GTK/KDE/Tk napster-clones to compile on my 4.1 system, without a great deal of luck.

I'm not sure if it's just people assuming that GTK==Linux and the files will be in particular places (FreeBSD prefixes stuff with the version number for gtk and tcl/tk at least) or me or dodgy software, but it was rather frustrating.

While on that subject, could those folks writing these types of things stop writing Linux apps, and start writing Unix apps, please? It's like "all the world's SunOS 4.1" or "all the world's a VAX" all over again!

Re:Do yourself a favor: Try it

[warlock]

> It strikes me that all the stuff
> you list above as things you like
> are to do with the FreeBSD distribution
> as opposed to it's kernel.

A distinction between the "kernel" and
a "distribution" in FreeBSD does not
exist, and doesn't make sense either.

There's one CVS repository with the kernel,
the userland, the ports and documentation,
and jkh calls for a freeze on the release
engineering branch every now and then
and rolls a release, much like 4.2 now.

> The above could all be achieved
> with a linux distribution.

In theory yes, anything can be achieved.

In practice I've seen no linux distribution
even coming close to such a degree of elegance,
although I do agree that this is subjective,
and other people might prefer Debians scheme
of organizing things.

You really have to try managing a few dozen
boxes and try to keep them up to date with
local customizations (at the source level)
both with FreeBSD and with ANY other system
to realise just how simple and elegant the
FreeBSD way is *engineered*...

-W

PS - Yes, I've tried debian and wasn't
particularly impressed.

Re:Dammit...

[shippo]

I used to call this Tony's law, after a collegue at work.

"A new OS version will be released on they day that Tony downloads the ISO for the previous version".

He did it at least 3 times in a few months, offering to sell us CDs he'd just cut for media-only costs.

I don't know where he is now, but he's probably installing FreeBSD 4.1.

Re:PCMCIA on BSD's

[agshekeloh]

I use FreeBSD on my Toshiba Satellite just fine. Sound, X, pcmcia, everything. If you're having trouble with PCMCIA, check out this Big Scary Daemons article: Laptops, PC Cards, and FreeBSD Short answer; if it doesn't work, you probably have an IRQ conflict.

Java 2 for FreeBSD

[dglo]

Hey, where's that Java 2 I was promised?

For the Linux port

cd /usr/ports/java/linux-jdk && make install

For the native port,

cd /usr/ports/java/jdk12-beta && make install

Note that the native port is built from scratch due to licensing restrictions.

Re:Beware

[mosch]

Your friend should report the bug, and a method of reproducing it. No joke.

Running 4.2 here, no probs.

--
"Don't trolls get tired?"

Solid, but . . .

[hawk]

I've brought both FreeBSD (3.2?) and Linux down from userland, and both are repeateable. I've never seen responses to bug reprots, so I don't know if it applies.

FreeBSD: go to image-link laden page (news collages, etc.) and middle-click on a slew of images under netscape 3. This causes many netscape windows and instances of xv to try to load. It overwhelmed the vm (but i didn't leave it until morning--it still answered pings, but eventually stopped swapping)>

Linux: debian kerenl 2.4.pre5. a) load 1.6G file into beav with only 160M of memory. Same vm oveload
b) I still don't know exactly what happened, as my fingers slipped, but I believe I selected two columns, and pasted them overlapping one of the two, causing massive memory allocation with recursion. *wham*.

All three of these were done from userland, not as root. The first two are repeatable, and I expect I could repeat the third if i knew what happened :)

hawk

Re:A Warning to Christians--BSD Daemons and Satani

[kps]

Daemon bondage can be brought about ... (sins of the flesh).

Rack-mount my hardware, finger(1) me, fsck(8) my raw partitions, mount(8) my file systems, abort(3) my child processes, chmod -R ugo=rw ~,... /etc, /etc.

The Bible makes it clear that there are daemons, or evil spirits, in the world that interfere in people's lives.

Yeah, had some trouble with rarpd(8) terminating; ended up putting the X terminals' IP addresses in NVRAM instead.

"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire ...

Like I'm leaving my network open to script kiddies.

... or that useth divination, or an observer of times, ...

1:22AM up 28 days, 7:38, 1 user, load averages: 2.03, 0.71, 0.32
(Storm. Power cut outlasted the UPS. And just whose fault was that? "Act of God", they said.)

... a consulter with familiar spirits...

Aw, c'mon. It's not just BSD sysadmins who are driven to drink.

... or a wizard ...

Well. Don't blame me when your universe crashes.

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like

Yay, new Slashdot poll! I got 82%; how about you?

1. Compulsion to abuse animals or people;

Fuck you.

2. Sexual perversion and immorality (homosexuality, molestation,etc.);

See #1.

Also, counselors at CBN 700 Club can pray with you by telephone.

$4.99/minute. Have your credit card ready; will appear as "Bondage Daemons" on your statement. Must be 18 to call. For entertainment purposes only.