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.

Comments

Great to hear it...

[Meat Blaster]

It looks like they took care of the handful of things that were causing me a lot of problems. Not only that, but I'm rather intrigued by this bit:

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...

Re:software for BSD

[Janon]

Much Free Software from linux compiles fine on BSD, if that isn't what you meen by being a programmer. Otherwise, you can mount your linux system under /usr/compat/linux, add linux_enable="YES" to /etc/rc.conf and run your linux binaries as they are.

semi-polling mode

[sigxcpu]

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

Re:software for BSD

[elbuddha]

# cd /usr/ports/emulators/linux_base
# make install
# echo 'linux_enable="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf

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 /etc/fstab.

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 /usr/compat/linux/

Really, its easy. The FreeBSD handbook does a good job of explaining.

figures

[jhines]

I installed 4.5 yesterday. Sigh.

Linux for desktop, *BSD for servers?

[korpiq]

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?

Re:Linux for desktop, *BSD for servers?

[Bishop]

I have used FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and various Linux distros on i386 hardware. In my experience Linux and FreeBSD are excellent on the desktop, and FreeBSD and OpenBSD are excellent on servers.

I find that the default install (without X) of both FreeBSD and OpenBSD has "everything I want in a server and nothing more." The ports system is there for the few extras you may want (like bash). Basically the defaults for the ports system and the install are sane. When I want a server I install *BSD get it running and forget about it. Usually I install OpenBSD as the install is easier, and it is slightly smaller.

No linux distro gives you this. I love Debian but it is suffereing from bloat. That and the default Debian install isen't good enough, because there isen't a true default. Something about giving the user choice. I don't need choice on my servers. I want an install that has been tested and works. Slackware dosen't have a ports/package system like FreeBSD. Again I want packages that has been tested and work. Slackware also has a hideous config. Editing all those files in /etc/rc.d/ is not the way to go. Use OpenBSD and you will understand. Gentoo is interesting. I just started useing it. It has promise, but it needs an easier install. It also needs a better default install. I like it and will continue to use it, but not on my servers. You really have to sit down and use FreeBSD or OpenBSD for a while before you will understand how lacking Linux distros are when it comes to servers.

For the desktop I have been useing Debian. I don't care too much about the bloat on the desktop and 'apt-get install package-name' is great. When it came to a desktop shoot out between Debian and FreeBSD, Debian/Linux won becuase ALSA supports my Trident 4D-NX sound card better then FreeBSD. In my experience Linux often supports uncommon bits of hardware better then FreeBSD. There isen't a native Mozilla for OpenBSD, so I haven't really used OpenBSD on the desktop.

For firewalls I have not used FreeBSD, only OpenBSD. OpenBSD has one of the best packet filters out there. It is easy to configure, and works. FreeBSD has something very similar. Recently I have been useing Linux as a firewall due to some funky stuff you can do with equalcost routeing, QOS, and bandwidth shapeing. If you don't need these features then OpenBSD is best. Linux can do some packet bashing that rivals Cisco routers. Unfortunately these features are largely undocumented.

Lack of documentation is ofcourse the worst part of Linux. FreeBSD and OpenBSD have lots documentation that is kept up to date. Linux dosen't.

FreeBSD and OpenBSD are better then any Linux distrobution for servers. These *BSD systems are well thought out and mature products. OpenBSD has a slight edge due to its easier install. On the desktop I think it is a tie. FreeBSD is excellent, but lacks a few of the bells and wistles you will find on a Linux destop. In particular some hardware is better supported under Linux. On the other hand Linux distors suffer from bloat and are not as well thought out as FreeBSD. OpenBSD makes an excellent firewall. Linux makes a good hybrid firewall/router. If I had to choose just one I would install FreeBSD everywhere.