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FreeBSD September-October 2002 Development Status

Posted by timothy on from the behind-the-scenes dept.

mbadolato writes "A new status report documenting the latest goings on in FreeBSD has been published. There's some good information n there about the features for the upcoming 5.0 release. BTW, there happens to be a lot of stuff going in there for something that is, according to the trolls, dead! ;-)"

39 comments

  1. So what? by ObviousGuy · · Score: 1, Funny

    In other news today, Microsoft was continuing development of Longhorn, its upgrade to the wildly successful Windows XP operating system.

    For a company that people love to hate, they sure have a lot of demand for their product!

    --
    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
  2. Hey moderators by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    How about instead of modding me down, you post a comment.

    What's that you say? You can't think of anything to post? The story is boring and as pointless as reporting that Mozilla passed the nightly builds?

    Yes, I agree with you. Still, is that any reason to mod someone down?

  3. Should be good! by PFAK · · Score: 2, Informative

    I can't wait for this release. It should rock, the new features like SMPng and other's should be cool..

    And to top off it, background fsck!

    --

    Free means no restrictions, ironic the FSF's GPL forces restrictions, isn't it? What's your definition of free?
  4. BSD isn't dead by Anonymous+Cowrad · · Score: 1, Funny

    It's dying.

    It seems to be taking it's sweet ass time about it, too.

    --

    --
    pants ahoy
  5. BSD is dead. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    A new status report documenting the latest goings on in FreeBSD has been published. There's some good information n there about the features for the upcoming 5.0 release.

    Ooh wow! A status report on the upcoming release!

    Yawn.

    Wake me when there is something to really talk about. BSD is dead, just like Amiga and BeOS, and a status report ain't gonna bring it back.

    1. Re:BSD is dead. by 20721 · · Score: -1

      Not dead, dying. Please get your facts straight.

      --

      20721
  6. Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    out there? I knew people who would not run Linux, period - BSD ONLY! Just curious if there are still those out there? What do those people think of Linux in its current stage (2.6)? Do you still think of the Linux camp as a bunch of neophytes who were in kindergarten when BSD was being developed?

    1. Re:Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by Anonymous+Cowrad · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, there are a few of us.

      I won't run anything but FreeBSD/OpenBSD on my servers, and I won't run anything but OS X on my desktops. I've never found a task that I couldn't get done elegantly with those operating systems.

      I don't think of the Linux people as bleeding edge maniacs, I completely understand their motives for choosing Linux. It's a neat OS, and if I were going to build a pc-based desktop, I might look into it, too.

      What it comes down to for me is that BSD works for me. Linux might be equally capable of meeting my server needs, but I've yet to see a compelling reason to switch. If anyone has any good reasons, I'd love to hear them. Is there a Linux version of Apple's "Switch" campaign? :P

      I'm in no position to evaluate current Linux distributions as I haven't tinkered with one in a couple years.

      --

      --
      pants ahoy
    2. Re:Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by eht · · Score: 1, Interesting

      i'm a hardcore bsd-er, i won't touch linux with a 10 foot pole, it's mostly a horrid hack, and most of the useful features in it got in a year after they were in freebsd, usb off the top of my head, even with freebsd's really open license no one could be bothered to port it, now useless things like having a program that syncs with an ipaq using a palm cradle, that's cool, so that's in linux tomorrow, plus the gpl is quite distasteful, and just to prove i'm weird, i love my win2k boxes, i use whats best for whatever i do, for video editing, word processing web browsing, it's windows, for firewalls, web serving, programming, it's freebsd, tho i do have an ultra 60 sitting here, not really doing much, and to add to the fun my ftp server is actually a windows one, it had every feature i wanted with easy configuration, so i just do a little port forwarding

    3. Re:Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by zulux · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I use, delpoy and love OpenBSD and FreeBSD both. I view both *BSD's (and NetBSD) as slightly more reliable than Linux. But increasingly enough, I'm starting to find the diferences between the free Unix varients almost irelevent - it's the user-space applications that I care most about:

      Example: If FreeBSD dropped off the face of the eart and I could only use Linux - i'd just shrug. But if PostgreSQL or Samba died, then I'd really be pissed.

      Even more weird, increasingly, I'm finding the diferences between Windows and Unix almost becoming moot - If they both have Mozilla, Emacs and can run OpenOffice then, increasingly, Windows is becoming irrelevent to any of my needs. It's just another OS.

      --

      Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

    4. Re:Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by PFAK · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I'm right.. here. I won't run anything but *BSD any of my servers. IMHO it's too big of a security risk. With FreeBSD I can upgrade my system in a few commands.

      If I found out one of my now converted friends was running Linux i'd be forced to hammer them over the head with an old Linux manual.

      --

      Free means no restrictions, ironic the FSF's GPL forces restrictions, isn't it? What's your definition of free?
    5. Re:Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by Garin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well, I'd say I'm a "medium"-core BSD-er. I spent a lot of time with Linux -- I cut my teeth on the late 1.x/early 2.0 kernels in the Slackware days. I moved on to try Redhat, SuSE, and Mandrake seriously (and many others fleetingly). Then about two or three years ago, I tried FreeBSD and I've never looked back since. It all happened when I tried to upgrade to a new version of glibc (remember that?). Holy cow was that ever a mess... I was so pissed off that I wiped the drive and installed FreeBSD -- it was purely a rage-induced reaction.

      After that, I was hooked. Don't get me wrong, Linux is tons of fun. But that's just it -- maintaining a current system can be a hobby unto itself. I honestly think that's why so many people really dig it. There's always hacking and work to be done. There's always some stuff that is broken and needs to be fixed. It seems like a Linux installation stays fresh and good for about a year at the most, and then you have to wipe and reinstall from scratch due to accumulated annoyances. For bleeding edge hacker types, that sort of thing isn't a problem -- they do it anyhow, and think of it as fun. I did for a while too, but then I got tired of it.

      FreeBSD was such a welcome release. It just -works-. Between the base system and the ports, it's all flawless. With every new release, I'd run the ol' "make buildworld" and a whole new system would magically appear an hour later. In three years of updating, the update never failed once. I've never had to reinstall from scratch, and so I'm still running the system that I installed all those years ago.

      Anyhow, I know it's possible to stay stable with linux. Debian appears to do this quite well, and if I were to run Linux again, I'm sure I'd be happy with Debian. It's just.. I dunno. There's nothing -wrong- with Linux, it's just not my style any more. FreeBSD has this incredible simplicity that I've never found anywhere else (FWIW, I do find the same things with Net/OpenBSD, I just find that FreeBSD is a friendlier desktop).

      --
      In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it. -John Archibald Wheeler
    6. Re:Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, Windows certainly has better applications available. I started using Windows 2000 about a year ago, and there are 5 major (among many other minor issues) things I miss most:

      1) I have to reboot for almost every patch and software install. The software installation part isn't as bad as it was with Windows 95, but I'm spoiled from Unix.

      2) I don't know what's going on in Windows. I have no clue. I'm not a geek, but I feel much more comfortable editing text files than working my way through a confusing GUI. I *know* what's going on with FreeBSD, particularly because its documentation (OS documentation, *not* applications) is pretty damn good.

      3) EULAs. I'm almost ready to go back to FreeBSD despite needing some Windows Applications because Microsoft is always doing something stupid with the EULAs. SP3 anyone?

      4. Viruses! Good god, do you know how I check email in Outlook Express? I view the source of each email to make sure someone hasn't attached a virus / executable file. Maybe this isn't so relevant anymore because of all the Unix exploits recently, but at least mutt was pretty safe.

      5. Make world. I don't know why I liked doing it so much, but I used to make world once a week. That someone as anti-geek as me can recompile the entire operating system says a lot towards the straightforwardness of FreeBSD. Updates in general were nicer on FreeBSD.

      But hey, I can use Photoshop now, I can watch DVDs, play some games, use a decent GUI that is at the very least consistent, and best of all, do my home recording.

    7. Re:Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yup. I propose we have another survey over the question of what color socks you should be wearing.

    8. Re:Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by soup4you2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've been using linux for somewhat around 5 or 6 years now.. then about a year ago a guy i work with turned me onto FreeBSD and i can say this i will never go back to linux again.. though i'm still new to the BSD world i can say that it's definatly superior to linux in many ways..

    9. Re:Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by Matty_ · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I feel exactly the same way. Two years ago this month I switched to FreeBSD from RedHat, and have never looked back. My FreeBSD server started out on version 4.2-RELEASE and is now up to 4-STABLE (as of a month ago). Runs great.

    10. Re:Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by mrneutron · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've run linux since Slackware & the beta kernel days. That era ended (professionally) when I had to support production internet servers (Squid http proxy, sendmail gateways, and apache web servers) running the Linux 2.4 kernel (AKA the 'kernel of pain').

      Lots of unstability, phantom escalating tcp timeouts, and high-traffic production boxes would crash or become unstable after 1-3 weeks of use, requiring a reboot. I upgraded the 2.4 kernel multiple times, but never resolved all problems.

      I'm still a fan, but Linux really stumbled with the 2.4 kernel. There's always a balance between features and stability, and 2.4 got that balance wrong. Very wrong.

      I switched all production servers to FreeBSD. One of the best decisions of my career. 10 months later: 100% uptime. Literally. Same hardware, same applications, same network, more users, heavier usage. Rock !@#$-ing solid.

    11. Re:Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
      nice troll. Yes, BSD is doing just fine. This message posted from an OS X box which has most of its storage as an smb mount off of freebsd servers, and the packets travelled through a freebsd box running ipf to go through the net. (and that's just my home network)

      I don't feel the need to flame the Linux effort, or insult Linux developers (especially since most of the developers are now seasoned professionals who get paid to work on Linux). Maybe someday there will be a Linux-based solution that doesn't suck in a lot of critical ways (debian comes close), but until Linux offers something crucial that BSD doesn't, I'll enjoy life with FreeBSD and Darwin.

    12. Re:Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by BSDFreak · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I started out using Slackware about 8 years ago. About 5 years ago I built a dual CPU PC and started looking at other OSs. I decided to try FreeBSD because it was the only BSD with SMP support. Since then I've only used Linux for work required purposes. Everything else is FreeBSD.

    13. Re:Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I couldn't agree more. I had similar experiences, learning linux and thinking it was so great, but then the RPM headaches set in. This RPM doesn't like this RPM. I actually missed the old slackware days. I always prefer installing software from source and building it myself. This may take more of my time with compiling, but at least I know it will work when its done.


      The ports collection to me is a perfect blend of "package management" and buidling from scratch. Looking forward to 5.0

    14. Re:Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, so you've been "computing" for what, three or four years now?

    15. Re:Are there still hardcore BSD-ers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are there still heroine junkies around???? The answer is YES!

  7. well, then by SweetAndSourJesus · · Score: 1, Informative

    You should edit your preferences so that BSD-related topics don't show up on your front page.

    Isn't that nice? Technology is amazing!

    --

    --
    the strongest word is still the word "free"
    1. Re:well, then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      But then where will I get the chance to post comments as above?

      If I blocked all the sections that were worthless here on Slashdot, I'd never see anything.

    2. Re:well, then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, i do exactly the opposite.
      I scroll down a little bit,
      and then i click on bsd.
      If a FreeBSD thread doesnt appear first,
      i quit slashdot until the next day.

      P.S.

      I am a linux user and a FreeBSD LOVER!.
      I dont hate linux, i wouldnt hate it even
      if i didnt use it.

      FreeBSD rocks some time,
      look at portupgrade and you will understand,
      compare it to RPM and you will understand more,
      look at how kernel and world compilation
      is done and you will understand just a little bit
      more.

      This *dying* story has been so long that its got
      old...
      And old things that dont evolve die.

      The *....BSD IS DYING* story is DEAD!!

  8. wild by Anonymous+Cowrad · · Score: 1

    just going for a sort of "stream of consciousness" thing there, eh?

    --

    --
    pants ahoy
  9. touch� by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought you just had a problem with BSD stories.

    If you're lamenting what shite slashdot content can be sometimes, right on.

  10. Still no by dar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Still no Scsi emulation support, I see. I thought that was going to be in 5.0?

    --
    My other Slashdot ID is much lower.
    1. Re:Still no by akharon · · Score: 4, Informative

      Um, look into atapicam. It's in -STABLE right now, and has been in -CURRENT for even longer. (I'm assuming you're talking about being able to use cdrecord on ide cd-r(w)'s)

    2. Re:Still no by elbuddha · · Score: 1

      man burncd

  11. LVM, XFS, ReiserFS by Per+Wigren · · Score: 2

    I'd love to run BSD here, but I have a 400 GB Linux-LVM VG full of LVs formatted with either XFS or ReiserFS, so I'm pretty much stuck with Linux if I want to access them... :(

    --
    My other account has a 3-digit UID.
    1. Re:LVM, XFS, ReiserFS by adolf · · Score: 2

      If you had a proper backup of that data, you'd have little trouble migrating.

      tar is about as universal as imaginable.

      --
      Kid-proof tablet..
    2. Re:LVM, XFS, ReiserFS by diamondc · · Score: 1

      um.. if it works don't fix it

      --
      "I keep looking in the want-ads under 'revolutionary' but there don't seem to be any listings.. "
    3. Re:LVM, XFS, ReiserFS by Per+Wigren · · Score: 2

      That's fine for servers and production-stuff, but this is my home-computer I mostly play with.. ;)
      I like to try out different OSes, just to play around with them... I once had Linux (debian), MSDOS 6.22, MSDOS 1.01, Win 3.11, Win 98, Win2k, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and BeOS on the same computer.. Now I also have gotten hold of CDs with OS/2 Warp 4, OpenStep 4.5 and QNX to add to that list.. ;)

      I guess I have to get myself a cheap old computer to have as fileserver...

      Only MSDOS 1.01 and OpenStep are "warezed".. I have proper licenses for the other OSes!

      If I just could get those CP/M-disks to boot, but it doesn't seem to support IDE so I can't install it.. :(

      --
      My other account has a 3-digit UID.
  12. Yes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds like me...until I tried Gentoo Linux.
    Now, I run only Gentoo and deleted FreeBSD.

    Nice OS both IMHO, but the FreeBSD just -works- part is not trues IMHO, I found several annoying bugs, reported them and they fixed them....wait for it 4 month later.
    Sorry, too long.

  13. One here - but it's "what you know" not "who" by DrSkwid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't think it's fair to brand anybody anything for using an operating system, especially using "you are young" as an insult.

    The things I like about FreeBSD /usr/ports
    It's an easy search term in google.
    It's obscurity

    Ein Users, Ein OS, Ein FreeBSD

    --
    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
  14. FreeBSD sux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    God it is awful.
    Time to jump off the sinking ship.

    Woo.

    Troll Out.

  15. Just the facts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html

    I just love it, even if it doesn't run HotSpot.
    It Rocks.

  16. *BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    It is official; Netcraft now 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 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