CompactBSD for Embedded Projects

miggidy_mac writes "FatPort (a wireless Internet service provider in Vancouver, BC) just released CompactBSD. It's a set of tools that allow you to build your own customized, lightweight distribution of OpenBSD and then burns it onto compact flash (or similar) so that it can be run on an embedded PC platform (like FatPort's own FatPoint). CompactBSD takes the security and networking features of OpenBSD that we know and love, and combines them with ease-of-build and small footprint, which is great for embedded devices. Check out the project on SourceForge."

Comments

It is official: CompactBSD is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

It is official: CompactBSD is dying

It is official; Netcraft confirms: CompactBSD is dying One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered CompactBSD community when IDC confirmed that CompactBSD 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 CompactBSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. CompactBSD 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 CompactBSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: CompactBSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for CompactBSD because CompactBSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for CompactBSD. As many of us are already aware, CompactBSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

CompactBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time CompactBSD developer Ken Simpson only serves to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: CompactBSD 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 CompactBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 CompactBSD users. This is consistent with the number of CompactBSD Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of FatPort, abysmal sales and so on, CompactBSD 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 CompactBSD has steadily declined in market share. CompactBSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If CompactBSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. CompactBSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, CompactBSD is dead.

Fact: CompactBSD is dying

Whew! These marketing guru's need a raise!

[Negadin]

Isnt FatPort releasing CompactBSD sorta like Tony Little selling Krispy Kremes?

Re:Shame the embedded market is in the shape it's

[Inthewire]

Your friend is obviously coming on to you in the hopes of improving *both* of your sex lives.

Re:What we can learn from BSD

[Shanep]

Research conducted at MIT found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to this study.

Quick, better tell this guy!

From your MIT link... We have run benchmarks to measure filesystem performances. Benchmarks have been made on a middle-end PC, based on a i486DX2 processor, using 16 MB of memory and two 420 MB IDE disks. The tests were run on Ext2 fs and Xia fs (Linux 1.1.62) and on the BSD Fast filesystem in asynchronous and synchronous mode (FreeBSD 2.0 Alpha--based on the 4.4BSD Lite distribution).

Hey! Way to beat us BSD fans senseless with modern benchmarks! You must have looked around a fair bit to come up with this golden oldie!

I can't be bothered looking at the postscript if it's anything as compelling as you're first effort at this Troll disguised as information.