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FreeBSD 4.4-RELEASE Is Ready

Posted by Nik on from the coming-full-circle dept.

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.

3 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. Why I use FreeBSD by smnolde · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

  2. What I like and dislike about FreeBSD by Florian · · Score: 5, Insightful
    What I like:
    • 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
  3. journalling vs. softupdates by elbuddha · · Score: 5, Informative

    BSD's FFS with softupdates could be considered to obviate the need for journalling.

    Read Journalling Versus Soft Updates for a good Usenix 2000 paper comparing both approaches, which concludes that:

    Soft Updates holds the promise of providing stronger reliability guarantees than journaling, with faster recovery and superior performance

    and that

    journaling alone is not sufficient to "solve" the meta-data update problem.

    Both methods achieve the same goals by different means.