FreeBSD 4.6 Release Delayed

Dan writes "Bruce A. Mah from the FreeBSD Release Engineering team announced that due to some late-breaking issues, 4.6 will be released about a week later than originally planned."

Comments

Only a week

[saphena]

Wouldn't it be nice if all software releases were *only* a week late?

Not too bad

[jquirke]

He summed it up well.

Good to see how the quality of the release takes precedence over any deadlines. That's the way it should be. I'd rather have FreeBSD 4.6 a month late than have a buggy one now.

A Good Thing

[grokBoy]

If only major software vendors delayed code to iron out the bugs, rather than shipping it on a date set twelve months ago regardless of the bug count.

I'm sure that having a stable DHCP installation is going to be important to all the cable modem users out there running FreeBSD, so this is clearly A Good Thing.

Re:Apple

[JordanH]

• • Apple?

  Not exactly fair to claim this as embracing a free BSD base, as OSX is not free, portable, and open-source.

No, but Darwin, on which OSX is based, is free, portable and open-source. Oh, and it's based on a free BSD base (with a Mach microkernel).

• This is like claiming MS-DOS is based on Unix because it has files and directories.

More like claiming that Solaris is based on AT&T Unix, which it is.

Re:Apple

[JordanH]

• If the Darwin kernel is actually based off the 4.4BSD code then fair enough. But I haven't seen that it is.

You might not see this if you don't actually look into it. Like, maybe start at that link I provided?

From this discussion of the history of Darwin we read:

Darwin also incorporates a full implementation of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) UNIX, welded on top of the Mach kernel.

and

Darwin wraps a customized version of 4.4 BSD-Lite2 kernel and userspace around Mach. It includes many of the POSIX APIs, exporting them to user-space, and abstracts Darwin's file system and networking. Darwin's BSD also provides the process model, basic security policies, and threading support for Mac OS X.

I guess seeing that much of Darwin is based on the 4.4BSD(-lite2) code, then this is "fair enough" for you.

From what I can tell, Mach is a very bare bones kernel here, not providing a process model or networking, etc.

FreeBSD is more straightforward than Linux IMHO

[Bloodwine]

ports system hard to use?!

cd /usr/ports/type/program
make install

damn ... mind-bending work!

shell choices? You have lost me there, since Linux and BSD use the same shells.

I honestly don't see how the installation program is difficult to use. I have heard many people complain about it, but it's not hard to use at all. Of course I haven't used any recent Linux installers (last Linux I used was Slackware 7) with all the dumbed-down GUI luvin', but I still fail to see how a straightforward ANSI menu system is confusing and difficult?!

Let's not even get into kernel compilations where FreeBSD wins hands down.

I mean, all you have to do is edit one single text file and then type "make buildkernel" and "make installkernel" and viola! No lilo or anything like that to deal with.

I do admit that the whole slice/partition thing baffles me a little bit, as I don't understand why someone would want multiple slices? Partitions are good enough for me when it comes to organizing a disk. Does anybody out there actually use multiple slices? If so, why (I'd honestly like to know!)

Re:FreeBSD is more straightforward than Linux IMHO

[slamb]

I honestly don't see how the installation program is difficult to use. I have heard many people complain about it, but it's not hard to use at all. Of course I haven't used any recent Linux installers (last Linux I used was Slackware 7) with all the dumbed-down GUI luvin', but I still fail to see how a straightforward ANSI menu system is confusing and difficult?!

Well, don't take our word for it. Read here why Jordan Hubbard thinks it sucks - and he wrote it. (Section 2.2 describes sysinstall.) A select quote:

dialog(3) is also extremely limited in the user-friendliness department and lacks features like the ability to put more than 2 buttons into a dialog or a Yes/No dialog which had a selectable default (e.g. No). The inability to put a "Back" button into various dialogs which could really use one or the necessity for asking only "positive" questions are outgrowths of those limitations and good examples of how an insufficiently powerful UI library can drive the utility-writer in undesirable but unavoidable directions.

It also describes various reasons the ports system sucks, though "hard to use" isn't on my list. My major complaint with it is that the "base system" isn't packaged. With a RedHat system it is, and you can really take advantage of this. For example, when doing a security audit, boot from external media, check the GPG signatures in the package database, do a "rpm -Va", and make sure nothing extra is in suspicous places. ("rpm -qal" to get a list of what should be there, a "find" command to get what actually is.) You then know no binaries have been tampered with. With a BSD system, you pretty need to reinstall.

There are legitimate reasons to dislike these systems. It's all about weighing the choices - some new FreeBSD 5.0 features (KSEs in particular) sound interesting enough that I might switch a system or two back to BSD when it's released.

Re:FreeBSD is more straightforward than Linux IMHO

[Metrol]

Oh sure, the ports system may be easy and all. Thing is, I have found a whole new level of respect for the Linux world of RPM's here. Normally a FreeBSD user, I went and slapped Suse 7.3 on a friend's laptop machine.

Suse's install is very sweet. Worked just like all those generic reviews out there said it would. Oh GOD, then I got the stupid notion in my head that I'd go in and update software! Nothing could have made me regret not going with FreeBSD more.

First off, pulled down the Mozilla RPM from Suse's site. Oh sure, it installs and all. After that, Mozilla comes up with a lovely blank screen!

The real beauty was trying to upgrade Gnome from Suse's RPM's. Can't install gnome-control without xscreensaver, which won't install without a couple of packages I've never heard of. Apparently gnome-core needs Sawfish installed... and of course Sawfish needs gnome-core. Weee!

I'm quite certain there's some kind of funky command line switch I'm going to need to extract from the overly verbose RPM man page. On FreeBSD I never have to deal with this crap. Every port and package has pretty much worked out all the dependency issues for me. Especially critical for something like Gnome which has dependencies that read like a Mormon's family tree (no, that is not a slam on Mormons. Geeesh).

Tell ya what though, for those folks who have been able to make use of RPM on a regular basis I have a new found respect. Anyone who can manage to get through "libobscure.so.12 not found" and still keep a system running is far smarter about this stuff than I am. This dumb FreeBSD user is humbled.

OpenBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of the many reasons why I prefer OpenBSD to FreeBSD. OpenBSD is ALWAYS due either December 1st or June 1st. Now, today would've been the official release date of OpenBSD 3.1, but it was officially released 2 weeks ago!! This is the only big project I can think of that does not delay its release. Linux 2.4 was late by a year, FreeBSD 4.5 was late by a couple of weeks, 4.6 will be late by at least one week, FreeBSD 5.0 was delayed by 14 months, etc. The thing with OpenBSD: they don't do revolutionnary released like Microsoft. Each new version contains many security and bug fuxes, new application, new hardwares code and a couple of new features (e.g: openssh, pf, pfauth). Maybe some other projects should take example, not only on OpenBSD's commitement for security, but also its commitement to respect release schedule.