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FreeBSD 4.6
An Anonymous Coward writes "FreeBSD 4.6 is out! The announcement is out, and so are the release notes.
Have fun, and thanks to the FreeBSD team!" The announcement has all the mirror information, etc.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Isn't Apple's Mac OSX a BSD unix?
Great!
When's 5.0 due?
my dvd discs won't fit in a:
Selected network drivers now implement a semi-polling mode, which makes systems much more resilient to attacks and overloads.
A partial defense against IP DoS attacks?
Another thing that looks really cool is that reboot now takes a flag to tell it which kernel to reboot to. Isn't this cool? Granted, most of the time on my Linux system I'm at the console when I do a reboot, so I can just pick it from GRUB, but for remote reboots this could be quite handy. And they've eliminated the deal with the odd legit TCP SYN packet from crashing the box to boot. In a nutshell, it's time to start downloading...
...done that. In fact I've been runnung FreeBSD 4.6-RELEASE for about three days now.
What does it take for a non-programmer to run Linux software on FreeBSD?
Need I wait for the big guys to adapt them?
= Kev
You justify your user base statistics on Usenet posts? And you think that Walnut Creek's problems put an Open Source product out of business? If anything, FreeBSD has grown over time. Check your facts, bub.
Are you grabbing from a mirror? using Mozilla to download it?
Considering how many false reports on slashdot has on that "FreeBSD X.X released!", I guess I have to hand it to them for finally getting it right.
AFAIK selected polling mode means that after an interupt the driver switches to poling mode to avoid the interrupt overhead.
Some of Donald Becker's linux driver have this feature.
This improves system stabillity and responsivenes under high nework loads, and avoides the so called 'livelock' where the system isn't hung but it is wasting so much time doing interupt handling that it can't do anything else.
This is a GOOD THING but it won't help much against DDOS
As of Postgres v6.2, time travel is no longer supported.
An AC wrote:
> FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all,
> having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden
> and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD
> developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only
> serve to underscore the point more clearly. There
> can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Silly troll! If FreeBSD can come out with new versions so frequently with only 7% of its developers, it isn't in danger of dying any time soon. And once Jaguar comes out from Apple this summer, it will be "*BSD is dying" troll posts on the endangered species list.
> Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this
> point in time.
Gee you missed the miracles. What a shame! They occured in 1996 and 1997. See "Rebirth of Mothra 1" and "Rebirth of Mothra 2" for details.
"It's a miracle! The sea water has once again created new life."
Moll, "Rebirth of Mothra 2"
Everyone knows Theo is an arrogant ass, but Darren Reed is not far behind. Check recent postings by him in the FreeBSD-stable archives.
We are now accepting bets on whether or not Slashdot announces 4.7 before it is actually released and by how many days.
I JUST installed Suse 8, now this. I need another HD, that's all there is to it...
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
I installed 4.5 yesterday. Sigh.
My frustration grew last year proportionally with the time it took to make Linux 2.4 stable enough for production server use. It still makes me a bit nervous and I have decided to go for *BSD in future where possible.
However, since Linux got most of the hype, most *nix desktop stuff especially from commercial side like game companies is targeted for it. So it makes sense to use it on the desktop. Just keep your data on the servers
More experienced administrators: do you support this kind of dualism?
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
Hooray for anonymous cowards! Unlike Slashdot regulars, they get the story straight!
Considering Apple is shipping 1/4 of a millon Mac OS X (based on BSD) machines a quarter, it looks like BSD works JUST FINE as a desktop.
And, it works fine with some of the most finkey desktop users out there - Mac owners.
> FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all,
> having lost 93% of its core developers.
Gee, I wonder why the number of core developers keeps on increasing? Isn't that odd? Some wierdo really has it in for *BSD.
You are correct. Mac OS X is built around Darwin, which is partly based on FreeBSD. See http://developer.apple.com/darwin/ for more details. Darwin is also available for x86-compatible computers, so it's not a Mac-only thing.
-----
Darwin is an evolutionary OS...
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
BeOS? - another dead system. Stay with Linux.
No, BSD is not dead. Try OSX.
photosMy Photostream
It's not really free. It's a pain in the [...] to add unofficial hardware support. There are problems with porting of Linux desktop software to Mac OS X. And it's not a multi-platform.
Love it. Got Gnome running along with Aqua. Maybe KDE3 someday soon.
photosMy Photostream
Does this mean I can run the MacOS on my x86?
Wherever you go, there you are!
In our company we decided to stick with Linux on both desktops and servers. The decision is based on the formula "good enough". M$win is the desktop platform users use now, but Linux is good enough to save money on destop licenses. BSD is the best server platform, but Linux is good enough to work as a server and to save money on sysadmin training.
MacOS is not a choice in the company with limited budget. No support of PC hardware, expensive Mac hardware, yet expensive commercial software.
After considering it we stick with Linux: Linux firewalls, Linux servers for DB, CVS, email and web, Linux on desktops with OpenOffice, Gimp and NetBeans. Why would we need BSD?
Someone may try the last argumet: mission critical applications. Well, for our DB server (Linux and PostgreSQL) we have a tape backup, replicated stand-by and load-balanced web-servers. Is it less reliable than if it would be on PostgreSQL? It's all about chances and the difference is very small. Same arguments about firewalls.
So, why would we need BSD?
If you use LILO, you can specify the kernel to reboot by:
lilo -R
reboot.
I have an "exp" config in my LILO, for experimental kernels before I move them off probation. So, when I have done my build and install, I just type
lilo -R exp && reboot
and there I go.
I don't know if Grub has anything similar.
www.eFax.com are spammers
There's a release engineering information page: http://www.freebsd.org/releng/index.html
The information can be update and revised, though. Just to give you an idea.
It will, however, run Linux software! Here's how:
/usr/ports/emulators/linux_base /etc/rc.conf
/etc/fstab.
/usr/compat/linux/
# cd
# make install
# echo 'linux_enable="YES"' >>
Note that if you choose linux binary compatibility during installation, the above is done for you.
For some things (vmware) you may need to add linprocfs to
linux_base comes with rpm, et al. Rarely, you may need to copy some shared libraries from a linux box to the the appropriate directories under
Is this the version with the Hurd kernel, runs on computers with nanotube transistor technology, and comes with Duke-Nukem Forever bundled?
Or is that version 5.0?
I like linux, but if I can choose freely, there is nothing I would pick over a *bsd, most likely freebsd.
There is no linux distribution that is as mature and aimed for servers. Don't even start talking about the bloated linux 'server' editions... A minimal bsd install, the latest versions of the services you really need compiled by hand and optimized, and you're set.
Mind though: I really don't think there's such a big difference between freebsd and linux, each has its pro's and con's... It really doesn't matter that much. Just use the right tools for the job, it's all opensource anyway.
And you can build a very minimal Linux distro yourself too, if you want... It's all about freedom, if you want linux on workstations (because that's what most distro's aim at) and freebsd on servers, you do that. And it'll work.
I wish the 'x is better than y'-people would just shut up and use 'x' in silence. Or contribute, if they really have too much time and energy anyway.
Plus the fact that dual booting is very common now AND that you CAN run Linux apps in FreeBSD :)
Bing!
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
Well. If you run the same distribution of linux everywhere, you're gonna be seriously screwed if there's some security problem / stability problem / whatever
If you _don't_ run the same distro everywhere, your argument about 'zoo' and 'mix of different systems' doesn't really matter, because different linux distro's can be as different as some linux distro's and *bsd. Compare slackware with freebsd, for instance. If your admins need training to work with your linux systems, they'll need it for every other distribution just as for bsd, so you save nothing.
And having different systems and people who _understand_ them is much more beneficial to your company in many ways, than cheap click-monkey admins who need gui's.
So why did you read the article... why did you bother to comment? Everything you wrote smells of asshole.
Example: RedHat professional, RedHat amateur, RedHat peewee, RedHat for people who don't want to pay, RedHat for people with millions of dollars etc...
And I was looking forward to adding a 486/66 to my RC5 efforts! :^) (Hey, I need something to plug all my old ISA cards into.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
But is it possible to "upgrade" from 4.4 to OpenBSD?
This
I'm assuming this comes with KDE3. Has anyone messed with installing the liquid theme on FreeBSD? I recall I gave it a half hearted attempt one day but something didn't work, and I got sidetracked and never bothered again.
And looking at the changelog I see they updated ls. How many decades has this been around and we're still messing with ls? The change seems to be rather handy though...
No. You can run Darwin, the "core" of OS X on your x86, but the Aqua interface, and really anything other than Darwin in OS X, is PPC only.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
Here's an interesting discussion about the Daemon FreeBSD logo and I would suggest to change the current BSD Slashdot topic image topicbsd.gif to something based on one of these: dbabe04.jpg, dbabe05.jpg, dbabe06.jpg dbabe07.jpg, CP63.gif, devilgirl-I.JPG, devilgirl-II.JPG, diavola.gif, xno_black_devil.jpg, purg1_006.jpg, or Devil2W.jpg. What do you think about it? Please post more suggestions so we could choose the best picture. Thanks.
You've gotta be kidding (or trolling).
Isn't Apple's Mac OSX a BSD unix?
yes, and the "Jaguar" release of MacOS X, slated to appear near the end of summer '02, will be based on FreeBSD 4.4.
Me too! Then I replaced the leather seats in my bmw with naugahyde.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Hard Times for *BSD
So why now? Why did *BSD fail? Once you get past the fact that *BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. *BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personalities?
The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.
why does Jar-Jar speak ebonics?
I like the one the AntiOffline crew made.
That's why it's dead.
Anyways, Debian is great on servers. Don't take me wrong, I'm a consultant/administrator for many companies and I admin various Linuxes (Debian, Slack, Mandrake, even RedHat) and various BSDs and even Solaris. I don't see a great difference here. There are differences however. *BSD and Debian-stable are very very very stable. If you need raw computing power and have multiprocessor system, don't use BSD.
But I'm not such liberal on desktop. I bought IBM Thinkpad and installed FreeBSD 4.5. It just sucked completely. No national keyboard support because of old XFree (this is gone in 4.6), very bad support for hardware (Linmodem, soundcard). IBM has great support for Linux and I'm happy with Debian here yet. BSD just is not for desktop (yet).
Ha ha. It's leenix itself which is dying the death it deserves for copycating and reinventing what's already in BSD and setting back computer science by 10 years.
it looks like BSD works JUST FINE as a desktop.
Sure, just add a few gigabytes of proprietary libraries and applications, and *BSD becomes a perfectly acceptable desktop.
However, since no other *BSD variant has that stuff, it's pointless to make generalizations.
You mean *BSD (instead of BSD*). Like FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD. Its just a little thing but it shows you probably don't know what you are talking about.
Well. If you run the same distribution of linux everywhere, you're gonna be seriously screwed if there's some security problem / stability problem / whatever ... with it.
Or, if you run multiple distributions, then you have multiple different security/stability/whatever problems plus significant admin overhead and you are screwed to the Nth power. Unless you hire more people.
"Computing Monoculture vs Diversity" is great way to karma whore on slashdot, but it's a pretty shitty way to karma whore with your boss. The fact is that corporate politics will tend towards the standardization and short term cost savings over some theoretical psuedo-science argument. Commercial UNIX has been losing business to Microsoft for the last 10 years exactly because of this issues -- Mangement tends to look at (RedHat) Linux as another standardization point, not as an exuse to introduce incompatibility^N.
Back on topic, that puts Linux and FreeBSD directly up against each other. You might use one or the other, but there's virtually no compelling reason to use both (other than as a SysAdmin employment program).
I tried on every computer I own without success. I have Sparc stations, Sparc64, PPC Macs and m68K Macs.
Linux works.
NetBSD works.
OpenBSD works.
So why doesn't FreeBSD works?
The code is too bad to be portable?
FreeBSD is not stable. This is a legend. My company has a bunch of FreeBSD web servers, and they are crashing like hell.
Remove the keyboard, plug it in again, and it doesn't work any more, wow.
hardware issue. btw, i've seen this done a lot of times at one workplace on freebsd boxes -- no problems.
And no, FreeBSD isn't fast. The filesystem is damn slow, and unreliable, even with softupdates. And don't expect to have a
lot of files in the same directory, you would hurt it.
i hope that speed problem isn't the same old 'linux mounts filesystems async' issue. that's been beaten to death. and freebsd 4.6 has no problems with large numbers of files in a directory.
No commercial support. For a reason. It sucks.
I just installed 5.0 yesterday. Sigh.
I PREFER TO INSTALL IT AND ACT ELITE!
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If my ISP charged by the MB for downloads I would be pissed that I downloaded 4.5 yesterday
http://Lenny.com
Good point. I use linux for my workstation and home servers. But when I ran an ISP, I used freebsd for my servers. I needed the stable uptime my bsd servers gave me. This was a few years ago, when linux was young. I have noticed my ISP and web hosting company both use linux. (Speakeasy and Bestwebhosting). They both have great uptimes with large loads. But all my friends who run ISPs still use freebsd or solaris.
Need to look past the FUD about any OS, and try it, make up your own mind.
The only problem I have with Bsd is broken ports, but I read on Openbsds site, they are going to do a full ports audit this year.
Not a BSD problem, but Nvidia only releases linux drivers, which are much faster than the stock bsd/linux drivers.
"Needless to say, I had our quad Xeons back running OpenBSD by the end of the week. Gerbil is back on its way to another glorious 3 years of uptime"
You mean the OpenBSD that doesn't do SMP yet??
Is this a cut and paste? Because I think I remember a story similar to this where again someone madeup a bunch of crap, and then stupidly said OpenBSd was running on their big SMP boxes.
And yes I am aware of the side project to try to bring smp to openbsd but that barely complies.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?d=c&c=msft&k=c1&t=1y&s= lnux&a=v&p=s&l=on&z=m&q=l
LMAO
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I had the same problem, even burned 4 copies of disc1 from a couple different mirrors, and I saw a suggestion from a while back about how to fix it. The fix involved adding a line to /boot/loader.conf, which is kinda hard to do on a cd boot. So, I tried the next step, setting the variable at boot time, and it worked.
/boot/loader.conf and all will be well. This is just a workaround, I think its something to do w/ the ata driver and some cdroms, but I could be wrong. All I know is it works, and others have had success w/ that fix.
At the bootloader prompt (Hit enter to continue or any other key for prompt), type:
set hw.ata.atapi_dma=1
boot
and it should install fine. Also, once installed and booted to it, before you try to read from a cd, add the line without 'set' to the
btw, do you have a AOpen 52x also?
.
FreeBSD users are funny. They say "FreeBSD is great" but nobody is able to explain why, except arguments that any other operating system has for years.
freebsd is teh poo!
lunix forevur!
If OS X is bsd
then lindows IS LINUX!!
and you are still a troll.
Both stable and secure!!!!
If you mean the keyboard doesn't work anymore, then yes. This is a known thing.
If you want the keyboard (ps2) to work after pulling it out and plugging it in again, compile your kernel with the option
device atkbd0 at atkbdc? irq 1
(which in the GENERIC kernel has an extra option flags 0x1, which shouldn't be present).
i hate to point this out to you, but uh... even if bsdi's market share is still dropping, that doesn't mean a single thing for *bsd's future. i'm fucking sick and tired of these former nt administrators turned linux saying constantly going on and on why linux 0wn$ d00d. Linux will never amount to the the type of server platform as bsd has in the last 15 years. i'm probally wasting my time talking to you damn kids. heh, yes linux is an _okay_ o/s but get serious, and use netbsd.
I could not help but notice that FreeBSD 4.6 has a kernel configuration file where you can tune the HZ constant:
options HZ=1000
When will Linux get such a useful feature?
HZ=100 sucks when it comes to playing realtime audio and multimedia while perform compute intensive tasks.
My machine is a 2000 MHz Pentium 4 - why are we all doomed to use HZ=100 in Linux?
Wake up Linus. Not every user runs a web server or runs compute-bound simulations for days on end.
...and then there's Daemon News' Dixie
OpenBSD does not support SMP reliably at this time.
This is just another odd inconsistency in this guys posting. Unless of course the server only servers less then 10 clients at a time. :-)
http://saveie6.com/
I am planning to buy an smp system sometime this summer. I am eagerly awaiting FreeBSD 5 because of much better smp, Java, as well as some beta .net support that Microsoft is porting. I got into *bsd after I needed to install nat and linux looked just horrible and cryptic in regards to setting IP rules. Openbsd and Freebsd are so much easy to administer in regards to this and much more secure by default when you install them. RedHat is a joke. Anyway I heard FreeBSD 5 was suppose to come out last January so I have been waiting to buy my new system. My isp is putting a 3 gig transfer cap later this summer so I need it before August. After that I will switch to dial up. I believe 3 gig is maybe a 3 to 4 hour download at the most for a dam whole month! Boy, I hope they finish soon so I do not have to spend a lot of money buying the cd's.
http://saveie6.com/
How odd. I'm running freebsd on my thinkpad t20 right this second listening to mp3's and using xfree86 without any problems. Maybe it is just you didn't bother to install the proper version of x and didn't feel like recompiling your kernel?
www.gentoo.org is the new debian ;)
I bought IBM Thinkpad and installed FreeBSD 4.5.
Amazing I have an i1300
It just sucked completely.
Funny, I don't have that reaction at all to 4.5 on the IBM thinkpad.
Given you are pushing GNU/Linux as a 'solution', and I have SEEN FreeBSD work, you must have a defect in the hardware, or something similar.
MacOSX is based on Next/OpenStep. NextStep is based on Mach, and Mach was taken from BSD 4.3.
The current Darwin/MacOSX uses a FreeBSD user land (maintaining compatiblity), some NetBSD innovations, and the Mach kernel. (If we use the logic of RMS, would Darwin be more accurately called FreeBSD/Mach--or for MacOSX, OpenStep-FreeBSD/Mach?)
Darwin is as much a BSD as is, say, Solaris...
Could someone please explain the precise relationship between BSD and Darwin/MacOS X? I was at a job interview a few weeks back (tech support for a local college), and was asked what I knew about MacOS X. I told the guy that I hadn't used it yet, but that I understood it was BSD-based. He told me I was wrong, that it was Mach-based but ran BSD binaries. A quick visit to the Apple website indicates that it is a Mach kernel (held over from Apple aquiring NEXT) but also says it's a modified BSD 4.3. Could someone explain this? I assume this means that it includes all the utilities of BSD, but has a non-BSD kernel? IANAUG (I Am Not A UNIX Guru) and only have user experience with Solaris, and have hacked around with Linux and FreeBSD on my own machines, so maybe I'm missing something obvious here.
--All your stolen base are belong to Rickey Henderson
BSD just is not for desktop (yet)
Go fix your system clock. Apple has been shipping BSD based Mac OS X for some time.
Well, there's surely going to be some 4.7 vs 5.0 vs 4.8 confusion by then to add some spice to it :)
Funny, I'm selling FreeBSD as desktops. And businesses are buying.
Given the install CD has 650 Meg capacity, and you are claiming 'a few gigabytes of proprietary libraries' reality VS your statement don't jive.
BSD is far behind of Linux in support of all modern hardware: USB, Firewire, scanners.
(If we use the logic of RMS, would Darwin be more accurately called FreeBSD/Mach--or for MacOSX, OpenStep-FreeBSD/Mach?)
Wouldn't it just be GNU/MacOSX?
Aw, fuck it. Let's go bowling. - The Big Lebowski
Well, I use RPMs only upto the point I've finished OS installation. After that point - I use only tarballs. Source, if possible, or binary, if no source code (i.e. Java). ./configure --[option] - that's the tool you cannot compensate neither in BSD ports nor in
RPMs.
It doesn't mean I dislike BSD ports. It means that the worth of Linux benefits (better hardware and software support) is greater than the small benefits of BSD ports.
Conclusion: if you are a real sysadmin, smart and not lazy, Linux is your right choice.
Less is more !
Linux users are funny. They say "Linux is great" but nobody is able to explain why, except arguments that any other operating system has for years.
Windows users are funny. They say "Windows is great" but...
I run same distro, slackware before and redhat nowadays. However, a set of packages, their cofigurations and overall system configuration is different. Ususally, I prepare 3 or 4 typical configurations in the lab, firewall, general app server and general workstation, then I test it, then I deploy it to the field. Configurations also may vary by supported hardware. And I don't have security/stability problems.
If you _don't_ run the same distro everywhere, your argument about 'zoo' and 'mix of different systems' doesn't really matter, because different linux distro's can be as different as some linux distro's and *bsd. Compare slackware with freebsd, for instance. If your admins need training to work with your linux systems, they'll need it for every other distribution just as for bsd, so you save nothing.
Even when mixing slackware with redhat, I use same Linux kernel with every linux distro. Of course, with some differences depends on hardware and designation. However those differences are independent from distros.
And having different systems and people who _understand_ them is much more beneficial to your company in many ways, than cheap click-monkey admins who need gui's.
I agree to have different systems, but I still uncomfortable to have different linux confis + different BSD configs while I can have just different Linux configs.
Consider the other thing: I can convert any typical Linux config to another one: i.e. firewall to desktop by installing additional packages and fixing a new kernel. I doubt I can do it with BSD, as it is not good for desktops, neither for Java app servers.
Where's that anti-troll I saw the other week? It had the *BSD is dying text with suitable wordwrap and then altered to show the silhouet of Beastie in the text. It was.. well.. refreshing.
Your customers don't have USB, Firewire and scanners, for sure. Also they don't require Java and Wine emulator. And they don't look end-user books in the book store. No need to mention JFS and bleeding edge software.
Not only is Mac OSX a BSD version, the next Windows will be BSD.
http://www.uncoveror.com/windowsbsd.htm
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Only if you base it around GNU, nitwit.
There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
-- David D. Friedman
I was about to replace Mac OS X with FreeBSD when I've read your fine article. Upon further research, I've discovered FreeBSD supports a whopping TWO architectures! Thank you for the enlightening, and Fuck You FreeBSD. At least Linux runs on my Mac.
I guess thats why MacOS X is so unpopular with mac users, right? and Mach is just so fucking popular.
then cd /usr/src
/usr/src/UPDATING.
make buildworld
make buildkernel
make installkernel
reboot
make installworld
I keep getting ERROR: Required smmsp user is missing, see
*** Error code 1
for make installworld.... help
mergemaster
This
Life is hard when you're dead.
You obviously haven't actually used FreeBSD then... USB is supported in the generic kernel, along with 802.11b, Gigabit Ethernet and SCSI RAID. There's no need for a journaling filesystem due to softupdates, you don't need end user books when you have the Handbook and helpful user support, and...
/usr/ports/graphics/sane-backends
/usr/ports/graphics/sane-frontends
/usr/ports/emulators/wine
/usr/ports/java/*
all seem to be in there last time I cvsupped, and many times before that. It's mostly all current versions too. Oh, and KDE 3.0.1 and GNOME2 beta both sit happily in the ports tree. Admittedly 1394 isn't in there, but by current standards it will be soon. I'm running 4.6.
I'm glad clues asses like you are my competition.
.5 or so, and java and wine are in ports.
Because FreeBSD had firewire drivers in 1998, USB before Apple announced the iMacs with USB, I've been scanning from sane
No need to mention JFS and bleeding edge software.
Show me why JFS matters? And what 'bleeding edge' software is worth having a company run on the desktop?
Now, Apache uses a BSD style license but they have an open development model which allows them to take advantage of a very large developer pool in order to stay ahead of their competition. In fact although proprietary versions of Apache exist which perform better than the official releases, SGI has put out some open source patches which generate even larger performance boosts. This is the reason why they have such a strong showing in terms of market share.
BSD once had potential but the procedural problems they are experiencing hurt it when it comes to the market. I suspect that this is probably in part because the BSD teams are not interested in such things, and that is a shame... In fact, although I labeled it as an inferior OS, this is not due to lack of progress within BSD-- it has been progressing somewhat, but rather because all the improvements they make tend to be quickly copied by their competitors AND they lack the developer pool to stay ahead of this game (a problem which does not exist in the Linux or Apache communities, though for somewhat different reasons).
I think that it is about time that GNOME is officially supported on I don't think that there is enough widespread support for BSD to save the operating system. What must be done is an opening up of the development process OR a GPL-style restriction on redistribution. In many ways I favor the former.
Even in a worst case scenario, I don't see BSD completely dying. I think the developers are less into competition and more into a sort of idealized cooperation. As a result, even if BSD becomes more marginalized, I don't think that it will die outright. It might even outlive Netware, for example.
What GNU software is there with the FreeBSD userland? I think you missed the rational.
So, where is the ZIP file XDFGF???
GOD DAMNIT , MODERATE ME!
One mor crippling bombshell hit th already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
i want to way something to the people swearing that *bsd is dying
i've copy pasted this article from march 25
it is a reply about the 7000th port in freebsd's port system. you can read it after.
after luigi rizzo inplemented the polling code in freebsd kernel freebsd is one of the fastest NOS (network operating system).
freebsd is never going to dye.
gees, yahoo use freebsd
in 1994 it started with p133mhz freebsd and 'yahoo.com' and now it is a giant.
ipfw with dummynet is more human than any ipchains/iptables/ipfwadm + cbq for linux
altq and fair queueing are implemented in the kernel and works with no problem.
the new ipfw tehnology (writen by luigi rizzo) will rule the world. it have ethernet filters, and many features (like tos matching).
it operates GREAT with 802.1q (vlans) and bridgeing even vlan bridgeing (available with mihail balikov's patch).
who told you that *bsd will die?
it will never DIE! untill the freebsd team goes for money. but i am happy because some company offered to sponsor the freebsd team to rewrite the tcp api but they refused because 10 more years NO money will be used to write freebsd code.
IT IS ALIVE.
It is official - Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amdest.com] to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
# system administrator, interbgc.com # mail to : borislav.nikolov@interbgc.com # icq uin : 8912353