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FreeBSD 4.4-RELEASE Is Ready
ocipio writes: "The FreeBSD team announced that 4.4-RELEASE is available for download. There are a whole bunch of changes and notes. Please be sure to use a mirror." Those installing for the first time will no doubt find chapter two of the Handbook invaluable.
1. cvsup r00lz for updating the OS
2. ports collection
3. single file (/etc/make.conf) for managing compile-time options and a master ftp server
4. VM
5. ports collection
6. no rpm or deb files
7. ports collection
8. linux binary compatibility
9. ports collection
10. softupdates
11. securelevel
12. make world
I converted all my computers from linux to FreeBSD about six months ago and never looked back. I find FreeBSD much simpler to manage, automate, and secure than any other *NIX (I haven't given OpenBSD a try yet).
There is no "journaled" filesystem since softupdates does a really good job and imporves the fs performance.
Oh, BTW, did I mention the ports collection?
'nuff said
They should either offer: a free cd burn (either they provide the cd, or you send them one of yours), or put it in stores and have them give the email of people who want their software ( these people have pre-signed up on their site and they submit it to the store along with a shipment). I'd prefer the first one myself, of sending them a cd.
Hey, cool. A volunteer! You forgot to provide your address so we can start mailing our CDs to you. I'm sure your followup will remedy that!
Note for the clueless: Free software is about DIY (do it yourself) not about whining that something hasn't been hand-delivered and auto-installed on you machine.
- better responsiveness under heavy load - Linux 2.4.x with its VM problems is particularly bad in comparison
- smaller base software/dependencies; BSD libc is much smaller than glibc;
/bin/sh points to ash, so all shell and system scripts are ash processes (and not bloated bash processes); classic Unix tools are less heavyweight than GNU tools (Remember: you can use GNU tools, bash etc., but they're not a dependency) - mature device file system
- Clear separation of what belongs to the core OS & third party software (=ports system)
- Best package management for installing/compiling from source (Debian's apt-get src isn't there yet)
- Kernel features are fewer, but proven & tested (as opposed to many experimental or not-yet-mature drivers/subsystems/filesystems in Linux)
- standard file system is 64 bit, allowing big single files
- Package selections show that FreeBSD maintainers are real Unix afficionados (vim 6.0 available etc.)
- the whole system is/feels very solid and mature
What I dislike:- distribution/ports mixes free and non-free software (Motif etc.) without prompting the user what is free and not; bad not only for Free Software zealots, but also for people who want to make sure they can use software without limitations in their environment (FreeBSD looks as it is made by people for whom software freedom is a secondary concern)
- available for a smaller no. of hardware architectures than Linux (or use NetBSD on non-x86 platforms, but that's already a different OS)
- no journalling filesystems (no ReiserFS, no XFS), a very small number of filesystems supported
- no
/proc, no framebuffer device, no ALSA sound drivers, no hardware accelerated graphics in the kernel - much worse SMP support than current Linux kernels
. GNU/Linux feels more "modern" than FreeBSD, while FreeBSD is comparatively "conservative", but also more solid. Draw your own conclusions.gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70
I was skimming over the Handbook and I noticed something about an option to install Linux compatibility binaries. Question for BSD users: how good is this compatibility? Perfect, so-so, or somewhere in the middle?
FreeBSD is a wonderfully consistent OS, great job!
The only woe I have is the plugin support for browsers. Most of them are binary only and built for Linux. Never seems to work for Mozilla (running under linux emulation) so I have to resort to buggy Netscape.
A lot of stuff out there uses Java or Shockwave...I just hate not being able to view them.