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FreeBSD 5.0 RC3 Now Ready
Dan writes "Scott Long announces that FreeBSD 5.0 RC3 has been released and available at all mirrors sites. Release notes can be viewed here, you can download 5.0 RC3 from ftp.freebsd.org or from one of your favorite mirror sites. Many thanks to the FreeBSD Release Engineering team for their work efforts!"
So it can't be completely dead!
Who cares if it says it's not dead yet? We have a quota to meet!
...saying *BSD is dead is dead.
its far more intuitive in the gui, and has better graphics for a start
Finally.
Now I don't have to copy my clients Adaptec DirectCD's to the network on a Windows machine before I can use them.
Why people mail me $3 CDRW's instead of $0.03 CDR's I'll never know.
Common question, what you will hear:
1. BSD can do everything Linux can do
2. Better server OS though in recent years linux has greatly caught up
3. Not as good on the desktop on Linux
4. FreeBSD ports system is better than anything linux offers
5. Not as good hardware support on FreeBSD as Linux, or games.
6. I think FreeBSD is easier to install(others think I am crazy)
7. Java sucks on FreeBSD
7. BSD is dead
I switched from linux to FreeBSD and prefer FreeBSD so take my comments with a grain of salt.
Since I don;t want to label a linux-haters and watch my karma drop like a rock, I'm posting ac
Yay! Finally! FreeBSD rules!
Are we sure this isn't just one of those after death body twitches? Sure, the person may be dead but they're still moving!
Jokes aside, I need to give FreeBSD another shot. I liked it when I used it, I just didn't have the time to play around with it.
I've just changed my Desktop OS from Mandrake to FreeBSD - I'd been running FreeBSD as my server OS for a few years now and have always been impressed by its stability (NEVER had a crash) and ease of configuration. I was unsure about it as a desktop system since in that I want something that just works without any fuss, and Mandrake seemed to do the job. After 4 hours I had FreeBSD running kde with kdm, my mail/news/browsers, sound etc. all set up and working without any touble at all. All I have left is to get my scroll mouse working and I have everything I need, and I am confident I will have much less problems then with Mandrake (a fair few crashes and awkward to troubleshoot).
I would now recommend FreeBSD as the unix of choice for any purpose, it may not have a fancy graphical install program, but you will really appreciate this simplicity when you come to make changes/ do something a little out of the ordinary.
My OS catagories -
Windows XX - For the clueless masses, and often a neccassary evil (esp. games)
Linux Mandrake - Good when it is good (i.e. installs without a problem and no strange configurations), but a hog to troubleshoot.
FreeBSD - The king of server OS's, and by the look of things a great Desktop system.
There's still a few gotchas in this one. Wait for the Release if you need stability.
Barring any nasty bugs, 5.0-Release may show up this week.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
Really looking to 5.0-RELEASE, which is getting quite close now. FreeBSD really is a nice OS> I'd really encourage all linux users to give it a try!
TODO: Something witty here...
"Flogging a dead horse"?
Debian is dead. It's not moving at all.
We are getting one release in 2 years.
FreeBSD has released 4.7 on October 10th, so they are moving very fast, in my opinion.
I have used FreeBSD in past and like it, but have usually chosen Red Hat because in my opinion it is a lot easier to install and get configured. Hopefully they have improved on this for 5.0. Has anyone who has tried the RC noticed any changes in this arena?
3a.)Some people think that FreeBSD actually performs better on the desktop than Linux. From personal experience, I am in this camp. However, Linux is EASIER on the desktop...it doesn't require the same amount of tweaking that FreeBSD on the desktop does. However, the rewards of all that tweaking are amazing. Also: a non-optimized FreeBSD install can be passed between two machines with disparate equipment without problems. Just did it recently. A HD originally set up on a 733MHz PIII was transfered to a 180MHz Pentium Pro box without bad consequences. However, once you recompile the kernel from Generic, it's a different story...
;-)
7a.) You have two entries under "7.)"
"But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever....In the digital world, we don't need back-ups..."
-- Jack Valenti
Since /. didn't announce it prematurely, it can't be for real.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
And this is great because it's a start on making binary formats less of an issue. Sure, there's always going to be those who want the fastest versions of, say, "rm", but for the rest of us, being able to compile something on one system and then just move it across anywhere will help tremendously.
Does anyone know if the OpenBSD and NetBSD projects are doing anything similar?
Racists should be sent back to where they came from
I may work for HP, but I don't speak for them.
In other words, the project has matured and begun to turn into a real software engineering project.
Maybe there is still hope. Maybe BSD is not dying afterall, but just transforming into a more professional product.
Better GUI?
..well both use KDE and Gnome.. Ive seen a couple of both FreeBSD and Linux systems now, and cant really tell the difference between KDE on FreeBSD or Linux.
./configure, make, make install will run just fine with *BSD. The major problem with *BSD is the lack of closed source software. In particular Java is a problem.
Most programs installed with
Your reliable sources are not so reliable, it seems. FreeBSD is not dead and never was, because it has much which other Unixes/Linuxes don't offer.
I hope you know that Mac OS-X is based on a modified FreeBSD kernel. I like FreeBSD and I am using it as a desktop system. I don't need Linux, because it's emulated here ("emulation" means "emulation which works", not like Wine or stuff like that)
Gentoo looks good but still has a ways to go to catch up to FreeBSD. It will get better as more people work out their ports and the port system. There are more people all the time so maybe it won't be terribly long. I think they will suffer a bit like Mandrake if they stay too much on the bleeding edge of things with the main releases. Mandrake learned to back off a bit on releases and still keep bleeding edge going with Cooker. Gentoo will be good if they realize it and will avoid some of the black eyes Mandrake took before they did.
Unlike full releases, RCs seem to be immune to slashdotting! I'm currently pulling over 200K from a Canadian (eh!) FTP mirror site. The day of the last full release, you were lucky to pull over 5 K from ANYWHERE.
Prevent linux based DDOS's!
http://linux.denialofservice.org/
After all, you're an OS that runs on a computer. They have a patent for that you know!
If someone is able, please enlighten me...
I'm starting to become a little frustrated with having to download new ISOs every time an update comes around; examples readily springing to mind are deadRat and FreeBSD. I'm trying out all these things to obtain a better Unix/Linux Background.
I also use 2-3 distros that are a more piecemeal download structure: Gentoo, Debian & Slack. Slack, in particular, is what I'm most familiar with. When a change is made to the Slack9 (slack-current) layout I simply pull the CHANGES via rsync and then build my own isos: thus, I'm not overly wasting bandwidth.
Is there a similar process for other distros, notably Mandrake, SuSE, RHat & *BSD? Or do I have to roll my own for this stuff?
Curious,
-fester
-'fester
My prediction is one day off...
Can anyone recommend a display cleaner?
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
Like I'm going to fall for this a second time.
You may not have understood the deep cosmological significance of "A Brief History of Rhyme", but there is not denying his crucial role in the establishment of gangsta cosmology. Truly a geniusly depraved English pervert, he will be missed.
Hi,
I can't boot my laptop with the RC2 and RC3 floppies, because it claims it cannot find said module.
The install hangs at this point.
(in a late stage of probing, after having found the network-card etc.)
4.7 runs OK.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
I will never consider using Gentoo again until they bump the ebuild version when a change is made to the ebuild script. This lack of versioning is disgusting and can be the cause of serious problems. Use FreeBSD. They bump the patch version of a port when any change is made to the Makefile.
Kan jeg få en pils, vær så snill?
(however one spells "fogey")
I can recall my days in college where I would always install the newest, latest and greatest stuff on my pc and then learn it and think I was cool... well, I don't know if I ever thought I was cool.
but nowadays I'm constantly just thinking "why should I upgrade? this stuff works just fine for me the way it is now!"
I think it is because I'm more business minded now and the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality has an effect on costs in that world.
after reading through what is new in FreeBSD 5, I see no reason for me to change. it looks like things that I don't have much need for in my world.
4.whatever works just dandy for me.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
7. Java sucks on FreeBSD
Both Sun Linux JDK 1.3.1 and 1.4.1 run very well under 5.0. I'm using JBoss, ant and a lot of JFC/Swing stuff.
7. BSD is dead
Shouldn't that be '8. BSD is dead' ?
6. I think FreeBSD is easier to install(others think I am crazy)
As a relative noob here, I have to say that I've found the exact same thing. I've tried Redhat, Mandrake, Debian, Slackware(fav. linux distro - since 4.0) Caldera and SuSE. After trying all these, I found that the BSD install just makes sense (and talk about your options!!) Kind of like Slackware.
If you ARE NOT an expert, don't touch the "Custom installation"! People often cannot admit that they are newbies when configuring a system. Please choose "Standard" or at least read the FreeBSD Handbook. You NEED the FreeBSD Handbook, because it's a great document.
.
Use simple installation (default) and the installation is very easy. The installer mostly suggest correct settings and you don't need to do much except pressing
The installation of 5.0-RC2 is almost equal to 4.7-stable. In my opinion the installation phase is not meant to have a complete system after it finishes. It is only for having a basic environment for adapting everything. Almost everyone will want to recompile the kernel and install further software from the ports collection.
Without that competition, Unix would eventually stagnate. Or worse, innovation would be driven into the same kind of useless creeping featurism we've come to expect from the folks in Redmond.
...-.-
I don't know, she doesn't seem to have very much meat on her bones. She looks rather like a stick.
No matter where you go... there you are.
YHBT, my friend.
So does MySQL under 5.0-RC3 use native threading and are those threads efficient enough that large shops can move back from Linux to FreeBSD on their MySQL servers? We use FreeBSD almost exclusively except for on our multi-CPU SMP MySQL database servers where FreeBSD just couldn't deliver due to threading inefficiencies. We would LOVE to move back to FreeBSD since systems maintenance is very easy and it would also mean having a uniform OS on all our servers.
No open source project is dead as long as there is ONE hacker out there willing to hack on it. Everyone has been screaming FreeBSD is dead for a long time now and guess what? Here comes 5.0. The success of an open source project is not measure by it's use, but by whether or not someone is still willing to hack on it.
Here's Gentoo's exact policy on this:
Package revision numbers should be incremented by Gentoo Linux developers when the ebuild has changed to the point where users would want to upgrade. Typically, this is the case when fixes are made to an ebuild that affect the resultant installed files, but the ebuild uses the same source tarball as the previous release. If you make an internal, stylistic change to the ebuild that does not change any of the installed files, then there is no need to bump the revision number. Likewise, if you fix a compilation problem in the ebuild that was affecting some users, there is no need to bump the revision number, since those for whom it worked perfectly would see no benefit in installing a new revision, and those who experienced the problem do not have the package installed (since compilation failed) and thus have no need for the new revision number to force an upgrade.
Gentoo bumps ebuild versions, just not for style changes.
well, for servers the BSD's and Linux are about the same with a slight edge in performance going to *BSD, but if you want support (paid), you'd best stick with RedHat or even Suse Linux.
On the desktop of course, I wouldn't use *BSD or Linux. Windows 2000/XP and Mac OS X blows them away in terms of hardware compatability and easier to use GUI.
In Linux, KDE startup speeds have been improved recently with gcc 3.x, new ld.so in latest glibc, and the objprelink-stuff. How is FreeBSD doing here? Has similiar things been done to the FreeBSD compiler chain to speed up C++ linking times?
Wooo, imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things!
Unix does not prevent you from doing stupid things; that would also prevent you from doing clever things.
Do they give you guys a time machine for the Test Drive program? From the page: "November 25, 2002
We have just added our fourth Itanium I system! This ProLiant DL590/64 is running Mandrake 8.1..."
It'd be difficult just to come up with a copy of 8.1 now. 8.2 has been out forever and a day, and 9.0 hit a few months ago. Is it due to Mandrake having an Itanium release that's based on a really old distro?
I always found Debian a bit obtuse, but mostly per the old, now-deprecated package manager it chose to dump you into on install.
/usr/bin ("and why do I have /usr/local/bin, and why is it empty?").
The distros that emphasize what you call 'simplicity' seem to work okay for users who expect a full XPerience, but to someone like myself, coming from small, customizable systems like DOS and AmigaOS, I couldn't wrap my head around 900 preinstalled entries in
What finally got me flying with *NIX was an install of OpenBSD; Slack, Gentoo or Sourcemage would probably have worked as well, if they'd existed in modern form at that time. [Of course, in retrospect, OpenBSD is still a bit crufty with BIND and Apache by default, but it was a good start, and I now know when to use each of Free, Net, and Open.]
I should also note I'm one of those weird ones who finds BSD kernel config files much more intelligible than (2.2's, admittedly) menuconfig... that's an even more subjective matter than arguing inits, but when you're a noob praying for hardware support, it makes or breaks you. [This was in the bad old days, when Debian's stable kernel hadn't heard of generic Tulip-based NICs, and FreeBSD hadn't either. I stuck with OS/2 for another dozen months, then put FreeBSD 3.5 on a 486 with a 14.4 modem (no LAN!), and evolved from there.
FreeBSD 5.0 is as important a milestone
as ever seen in the *NIX world. Many new
features and core technologies are
incorporated in this release.
The main problems with this release will be
caused by the "Chicken or Egg Conundrum",
in that the release will spur many new 5.0
users, whose input will come "after" the
pre-release testing process, finding bugs
that are not apparent in the release candidate
series due to limited testing on the incredibly
varied hardware and software systems found
in the "wild".
This is not a FreeBSD specific problem, this is
a reflection of the reality of a volunteer based
project with limited resources.
The incredible speed that FreeBSD developers,
contributers, and users update and solve
problems is amazing. Just check the mail
list archives for *many* examples of this!
IMHO many of the best and brightest minds in
the *NIX world have gravitated to the BSD's
stability and more structured development
model. For younger readers a "structured"
development model may seem to be a turn off,
but a few years of real world experience
will certainly temper this argument.
Thanks and Best Wishes to the BSD community,
and when the dust settles FreeBSD 5.X will
be the standard others are compared to.
Sig em Duke !
I like both. It just depends on what you want from the OS. I also found FreeBSD easier to install, and generally easier to make configuration changes and install new software. It has that feel that reminds of SunOS/Solaris which is nice.
I am using Debian right now, though because Linux is simply better supported: by the package maintainers as well as hardware/software manuafacturers. I had problems with FreeBSD such as necessary files completely missing from the official ftp sites (example: trying to install Windowmaker). I found XFree86 to run faster on Linux, though this could have been a configuration issue or have more to do with the video drivers.
FreeBSD is completely capable as a desktop OS, I will run it again at some point. For example, running KDE/Gnome under FreeBSD is basically the same experience as under Linux.
Zoot!
How about the low-latency (kernel preemption) patch that exists for Linux? How does FreeBSD compare with that? Already have good low latency?
... is driver support. I run my entire home network (12 hosts) on token-ring, but was forced to switch to redhat due to a buggy oltr (OC3140) driver. Beside this, FreeBSD never had another token-ring driver.
Even Linux has its own problems, not counting TX packets and lots of Soft errors on heavy traffic pausing sometimes for upto 10 sec. This is a bummer for online games.
It seems I'll be further forced to use Solaris x86 which naturally has drivers MADE by the madge/olicom people themselves. I dont yet know the quiality of their SNAT code, neet testing. Then again, I run a website on PHP/MYSQL on the same server (one ip ), and theres no PHP for Solaris. Adding GNU GCC and compiling PHP isnt a very tested solution and I'll have trouble there, but gotta try that before switching.
Would have been nice to have ONE real token-ring driver for FreeBSD. I miss its simplicity and standard on Linux, but am discovering so many new networking features on Linux its mind-boggling.
Hardware companies should release a standard driver code (based on XML) that can be translated to C for the platform and natively compiled. Token-ring equipment isnt bad for its price, but only the VERY proprietary OSes get drivers from hardware OEMs. Companies like SUN just sit back while the driver list grows (stability is also the manufacturers problem). *BSD and Linux have to rely on the developer community which is increasingly getting splintered between Linux distros and BSD flavors.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
...mostly because the non-expert installation has been fairly broken at times, says the user who was allowed to choose both KDE and Gnome, and then noticed X was configured for neither. [Not that you shouldn't be able to install both KDE and Gnome, of course, but there's really no RHAT-like integration, and you just get left confused as to what packages actually got installed.]
I'd argue that users *should* be doing expert installations, and should expect to do at least 10 of them in the first year of learning. After that, there should be enough clue gained to produce the result desired.
--
Hopefully libh will lead to a less braindead installer sometime in the next 12-24 months.
Will there be a reasonable upgrade path from 4.X-STABLE to the 5.X STABLE branch, when it becomes available?
There was from 3.x->4.x, although it may have stretched some people's idea of reasonable. I pulled it off without problems on two boxes, although both were soon replaced with new hardware and fresh installs of 4.x.
with the eventual arrival of gentoo 1.4 we should be seeing the GRP (gentoo reference platform) which will essentially be a stable 'version' (which basically means thoroughly tested packages are the unmasked ones :P). so it is your choice if you want to bleed or not.
unfortunately for me i dont have a choice. im an update addict...
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
Yes, I believe that was up till now the first and only Mandrake release for Itanium. They are now working on an IA-64 version, probably of 9.0 or 9.1.
I assume the market just isn't there to make it profitable to release that often.
For ppc they released a 8.2 version, and a 9.1 is in the make, and I assume ppc has a rather big marketshare compared to Itanium and IA-64.
Well, don't worry about that. We can get you back before you leave. (Dr. Who)
http://www.mchawking.com/ M.C. Hawking for president!!.. :)
...there is no way in hell I'm installing 5.0 on anything important, even though it's going to be a "production" release. 4.8, 4.9 all the way baby.
Why you ask? There's far too much new code for 5.0 to be stable yet. I was using 5.0-CURRENT SMP in November and December of 2001, and was very impressed. Alas, it was running on an IBM DeathStar 75GXP, which died (lol--like the name suggests)...
I unsubscribed from the -current list a month or so later because Matt Dillon (the real one) was being his usual dickheaded self and causing a massive flamewar.
Anyway, I resusbscribed to -current in October cause I knew they had slipped the release date to somewhere around November, January, etc. and I wanted to find out how things were going (i.e. is this good enough that I should install it and have more fun with it). Ooh boy. Since I left, we've added GEOM, GDBE, a new init script system, IPFW2, UFS2, etc. vn has been replaced by md, devfs hasn't gotten any better, and as far as I can tell, they still have background fsck turned on by default, which tends to hose you when the least thing goes wrong with your fs (background fsck was FreeBSD's bitter parting shot to me when my GXP died -- it murdered my filesystem before I had a chance to save my valuable data -- admittedly this was a "for fun" desktop system, but that's typically considered Naughty). On -current today we have a couple people posting about panics. I enjoy the response in this one:
From: phk@freebsd.org (for those who don't know, Poul-Henning Kamp is one of the wisest, most respected, and ancient of all FreeBSD hackers)
Subject: Re: FreeBSD 5.0 RC3 now available
"Roderick van Domburg" writes:
I would like to point to a currently unresolved issue
[snip]
The thread is titled "panic: trap: fast data access mmu miss" and is about an error causing the sym SCSI controller to fail to mount root at best, and panic at worst.
Mr. Henning-Kamp's response:
Well, we all want our pet bug fixed before the release rolls, but at some point we simply have to call it quits and ship the release.
[snip]
In the meantime we _really_ have to ship 5.0-RELEASE, we keep slipping it.
Commentary: I agree, they really need to get 5.0 out the door, and I don't necessarily disagree with phk's opinion. But it does say massive Bad Things(tm) to me about the quality of this software that release engineering is leaving *known panics* in the software cause it is so late and over-schedule!!! Ah, and don't even get me started on not being able to install new boot blocks or run fdisk on a mounted filesystem, crashdumps overwriting people's disklabels, etc. etc.
Another one just came in: "PANIC in tcp_syncache.c sonewconn() line 562" about an easily-reproducible (from user mode) kernel panic. Come on people, this is worse than Windows NT ever was! (well, except the guy who could bluescreen it by printing tabs and backspaces).
So, no thanks to 5.x for me, for now.
Likewise, if you fix a compilation problem in the ebuild that was affecting some users, there is no need to bump the revision number, since those for whom it worked perfectly would see no benefit in installing a new revision, and those who experienced the problem do not have the package installed (since compilation failed) and thus have no need for the new revision number to force an upgrade.
This is not a style issue my friend. I would like to hear someone with a good deal of realease engineering experience comment on this. If its broken for some people, its broken.
It really bothers me when a port on one machine segfaults reguarly and the same port on another machine works just fine because versioning is a mute point on gentoo.
On a FreeBSD box, if i know that port version x.y.z is broken on my box, i'll wait until x.y.z+1 is out and give it a try. On gentoo, i completely ignore the versioning and as i run 'emerge rsync; emerge foo/bar', i pray to the gods that someone has changed the ebuild. And dont even try to tell me that the ChangeLog files are reguarly updated.
Kan jeg få en pils, vær så snill?
Well since SCO thinks that Linux infinges on their patents and is wanting to charge every Linux user almost $100/CPU fee it's a good thing that FreeBSD is the highly refined, free unix that it is. :-)
(A die-hard FreeBSD user since 1996)
I don't understand why they modded you "funny"... you really have a point but... I guess it was not understood by them. xoxo's ***
Moderators: Don't agree? pray tell why.
(A die-hard BSD user since 1986)
...-.-
I may work for HP, but I don't speak for them.
As everyone's said, cvsup is rsync-based, if you want to build an upgrade.
However, when it comes to binary installs (and binary upgrades), not many people realize how painless it is to do an FTP install. I suggest looking into it; it's much less load on the servers vs. downloading ISOs, since you aren't pulling crap you don't need. You should never need to burn an ISO of FreeBSD unless you have 20 boxes to install (and don't want to run your own private net-install mirror, which is a better idea), or have absolutely zip for bandwidth.
I've net-installed OpenBSD over a 56k link- it's surprisingly unpainful, though you do need a proper LAN to do it- no PPP support on the install floppy, so you need another machine serving as NAT gateway.
Actually it is not as trivial as it sounded. Many people right or wrong feel this way, and some folks(myself included) would like it changed.
:-)
I think the guy is cute, but it turns folks off.
I doubt it would ever happen.
I do have suggestions if anyone ever wanted to hear them though.
I have a graphics card that uses the NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 chipset. I gather that XFree86 doesn't support it. There's an official NVIDIA driver for FreeBSD 4.7. Will it work with 5.0? I don't care about 3D graphics.
"I may work for HP, but I don't speak for them."
Actually, you just did. Thanks for the insight. I tried using the Testdrive program around 2 years ago but it was just a disaster online. If it's improved I might take a look again.
Again, thanks for the clues.
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 50042807 Jan 28 2001 /bsd.el
This is why you keep a copy of GENERIC around in /.
It seems some people are confusing Stable and Release branches. 5.0 Release will not be a Stable branch according to Release Engineering. The stable branch will emerge around 5.1 or 5.2.
Just something to keep in mind.
well, it make senses that both FreeBSD and slackware installs make sense.. Slack is the most BSDish of the linuxes out there :-) :-)
I started using linux with a slack, then tried a couple other distros (redhat, debian, namely) and didn't like those very much... Then tried FreeBSD, and just love it
An OS for engineers, not for political statements. See FreeS/WAN and 1DES support to see what i mean.
i had a sig, once..
Does this include floppy boot for network installs? ( or those with non booting CDROMS ).
1gb recommended? ack! blows the old mini installs.. quite a lot of wasted space just to run a simple smb server.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Nope! Check this distro ...
http://www.lesbian.mine.nu/
Lesbian GNU/Linux provides more than a pure OS: it comes with more than 10000 packages, precompiled software bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine.
It comes with a superior package management system called porn-get...
With Mandrake, you can use 'urpmi' to upgrade your system over the net. For example, if you want to upgrade your 9.0 system to Cooker (the 9.1 development version), just add it to your urpmi configuration withr /i586/
urpmi.addmedia --distrib Cooker ftp://somemirror.com/path/to/Mandrake-devel/cooke
Then, do
urpmi --media Cooker --auto-select
and you're done. Well, almost done. Urpmi won't update the kernel automatically, you'll need to do an 'urpmi kernel' to get the new kernel installed.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
You're not from Texas are you?
I think folks have to remember that the mascot comes from the UNIX daemon, which is a headless process. Someone got cute, and didn't mean anything by it.
Gotta love the mainstream press and their hype. You'd think they'd have better things to report on than supposed satanic links. :P
Wrong on #4. Gentoo's Portage is quite similar, but with one killer feature: the ability to select a version. Both FreeBSD and Gentoo's latest XFree builds don't work for me, but under Gentoo, I can easily install the official, unpatched XFree86.org release. BSD is just screwed.
__CmdrTHAC0__
In Soviet Russia, Spanish Inquisition doesn't expect YOU!!
5. Not as good hardware support on FreeBSD as Linux, or games.
I don't agree with this. I just spent most of the weekend attempting to install RedHat 8.0 on a hand-me-down server. The server uses an Intel L440GX+ motherboard. RedHat 7.x installers choke on this motherboard. The RedHat 8.0 installer works, but the machine won't finish booting afterwards (Linux of any variety doesn't get along well with the Adaptec AIC-789x built into the motherboard). Maybe it's just me, but this is about the 3rd machine in the past year that I've had serious install issues with Linux. All of them have been older machines that older versions of Linux worked fine on.
It took me about two hours to install FreeBSD 4.7 on it instead. The installer ran fine. The machine booted fine after the install. I like FreeBSD.
WOW! This sounds even better than Ninnle! I've always wanted to be a lesbian...if I could only get rid of this penis...men's bodies are soooo ugly! Where do you download it?
Uh ... a Daemon predates Christian mythology. I believe its ... Daemons were neither good nor evil toward humans. They were fairly mischeivous creatures but on the
origins are in ancient Greek lore
whole were not considered 'evil.'
If we are all being honest in this here thread, I have always felt that ... all it takes is a
the Daemon keeps ingorant people away from the OS
little Google and your misgivings about Devil worship and Freebsd shall be
exorcised: Give your head a shake.
Now when'll linux die?
Uh ... a Daemon predates Christian mythology. I believe its ... Daemons were neither good
origins are in ancient Greek lore
nor evil toward humans. They were fairly mischeivous creatures
but on the whole were not considered 'evil.' This leads us to
the nto too distant past when unix had these little headless
processes that on more than one occasion sturred up trouble.
If we are all being honest in this here thread, I have always ... all
felt that the Daemon keeps ingorant people away from the OS
it takes is a little Google and your misgivings about Devil
worship and Freebsd shall be exorcised: Give your head a shake.
How in the name of fuck is that a troll?
Troll, go away!
This thing was supposed to be dead already :-)
I don't agree with this.
I also have more hardware problems with Linux. Anybody tried to install it onto IDE RAID? The kernel could not see controller...
Basically you have to install it on regular device, recompile kernel, then install it to RAID.. Bleh!
You shouldn't take offence to the logo; there's nothing satanic about it. Definition is here Traditionaly a daemon is a helping spirit working in the background for your benefit. This isn't too far a stretch from the saints catholics pray to. In the unix world, a daemon process is a program operating without the knowledge of the user which handles the minutia the user doesn't have the time, interest or skill to administer. Unfortunatly, christians have a history of interpreting anything that is not of God as being satanic and because daemons comes from greek mythology, they have been interpreted as satans minions. The logo is simply an unfortunate blend of the idea of a daemon with a face that is easily recognisable. Sorry, no prince of darkness here, only Greeks!
The Christians are just pissed off that now daemons serve men instead of men serving Daemon^H^H^H^H^H^HGod. Fuck 'em.
Most people on /. consider mac users idiots... that's fine with me - I don't really mind... I can compile my own apps, but have no desire to modify my kernel...
I have been looking longingly at the progress that FreeBSD has made in the past year - and hope that 5.0 becomes the basis for the next Darwin release...
This comment is purely (mac)userland-selfish.... but I think it refelcts nicely on the technology and abilities of the FreeBSD team...
Way to go!
So run the system but don't display the logo.
Can't really see a logo on most of our boxes since they are servers.
I've recently started using FreeBSD for a couple of routers; we're hooking up to a frame relay network, and the telco will only support Cisco-type LMI (which Linux doesn't support.) FreeBSD's netgraph, however, does, so we're experimenting with that instead.
FreeBSD is OK, but there are some problems I've observed; keep in mind that these are only MY OPINIONS AFTER A WEEK. For the most part, I could be entirely wrong about them. If so, I'd appreciate hearing it, (without flames, please.) Note that I had no such problems when I started with Linux.
1. Poor documentation. The docs are pretty thin - the handbook contains SOME information, but doesn't cross-reference any of it (for example, docs on Frame Relay are pretty much nonexistant.) Another example is support for network cards - each router has an ISA network card in it, which FreeBSD should support - but finding out which driver to use was a pain in the ass. I thought maybe the FAQ would help, but nope - all there is is "How do I find out what's supported?" - which has an answer something like "view a particular file"... which basically just said "Yes" (Which doesn't really help me find out which driver to use.)
2. Installs easily (easier than the Linux distros I've tried), but aggrivation occur as so:
- select install types, all that apply (X developer, Kernel developer, desktop, etc...) You select one, then are immediately prompted with "Would you like to install Ports?" - select "NO", then go on to select another install set, and are AGAIN promted if you want to install the Ports.. every time you select (or unselect something) you are asked about Ports.. this is a collossal pain in the ass.
3. Poor support for ISA network cards. You have to recompile your Kernel to the I/O and IRQ settings on the card (in Linux, you just pass parameters to insmod). This is a huge pain in the ass - especially when you want to use a standard kernel, and don't want to put a development environment on each machine. Now, looking at the source for the FreeBSD bootloader, I think it MAY be possible to pass the needed parameters to the kernel at boot time, but I couldn't find any way to do this (which would bring us to point #1, documentation.)
4. Routing isn't as powerful as Linux. BSD routes based solely on destination IP address, whereas Linux's iproute2 gives the ability to select a destination interface based on virtually anything you could imagine (including source or destination port, which process generated the packet, which interface the packet came in on, or the price of tea in China) - this is VERY useful for complex sites.. like "we have a high-bandwidth, high-latency sattelite link, and a lower latency 56K centrex line - have all the high bandwidth stuff, like web surfing, go through the sattelite link, and the latency intensive stuff, like terminal sessions, go through the centrex line.)
Again, the just might be possible to do this with BSD - but if so, I haven't found any documentation on it (again, see point #1)
5. IP firewalling is more flexible under Linux. - FreeBSD's IPFW is very well documented, and very straightforward, but not as powerful as ipchains or iptables, which is almost like a miniature programming language. It also ties in nicely with iproute2.
6. FreeBSD's NAT is done is user space (?). You have to run natd(8) - a userspace program - in order to do NAT in FreeBSD. This would (logically) make Linux's NAT/Masquerading higher performance. (Note, I've not benchmarked FreeBSD's NAT, nor have I examined the source; it's entirely possible FreeBSD's context switches aren't as slow as in Linux. Also, it's possible that FreeBSD's NAT still happens in kernel space, but I would tend to doubt it, as the kernel option to enable NAT is "IPDIVERT", which is used to divert frames to userspace.)
Again, if any of what I've written here is incorrect, please let me know.
No matter if that's troll-like or not - what about his arguments? Is running away a solution in this case?
The only thing preventing me from going back to freebsd as my primary *nix based OS is lack of support for my sound card, an SB Audigy Gamer. Does anyone know if/when they plan on supporting the Audigy?
is nvidia support already on rc3? :P
i think ill keep 4.7 and wait a little more...
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I really wanted to try gentoo for its portage system, but the install process is fundamentally flawed. I have an Asus P4PE with an onboard broadcom gigabit nic... and gentoo does not support this nic, even though it says it supports every nic out there (as it should since it is required to go about installing gentoo). So... I'm unable to progress to whatever stage install requires online connectivity. If only they had a traditional self-contained CD install system like every single other OS as an option.... I could at least get gentoo up and running. Then install the drivers from the Asus cd that came with the motherboard. But until that happens, I have to stick with other distros. I hope FreeBSD supports it too in the future.
Java sucks on every system!
anyone know if freebsd's kernel has some equivalent to the linux preemptible kernel patch?
His arguments are worthless. Many people, myself included, believe that the BSD license is worthwhile: if you're going to release it, why only release it halfway?
I release my code, allowing everyone to do with it as they want. If companies want to use my code, fine, leave my copyright, sell the rest.
The GPL license is viral in nature, and has no real benefits over the BSD license.
Here's a quicker way to upgrade from what other people are suggesting:
/stand/sysinstall as normal. In the options screen, change the release name as appropriate (like to 4.8-RELEASE, etc). Then do a ftp install for the base system, and configure->packages for other stuff. This only works for RELEASE, not -current or -stable.
Run
Simple.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
There's a better way to describe a "daemon". You know that devil and that angel that sit on your shoulder and whisper in your ears, that you see so often in comics? Those are daemons, and that comic image comes straight from ancient Greece.
p.s. I am a Christian. I no of no other Christian that gets upset over Beastie. It isn't satanic, because the Bible (as well as Torah, Koran, Book of Mormon, etc.) does not describe Satan or any demon as having red skin, horns, forked tail and wielding a pitchfork. The image of Beastie is about as representative of satanism as a green warted witch with a broomstick is representative of Wicca. I've heard *one* anecdote about someone getting upset over the image of Beastie. All that proves is that there's at least one idiot somewhere in Texas. But we knew that already, didn't we?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I tried FreeBSD 4.7 for a while - still have it installed actually - and could not get around the problem of user-mountable removable media.
I suppose I could suid the relevant binaries (mount.iso9660 AFAIR), but is there a cleaner solution?
Thanks...
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
I'm just going to pick on you because of the never crashed comment. I've had Linux, BSD, OSX, Solaris, SunOS, AIX, OS/2, Win2000, WinNT... all crash on me. The only OSes I've never seen crash are VMS and Z-OS. I use Windows 2000 all the time. It crashes; it crashes a lot less than Win95/98/ME but that's far short of never.
Now I have serious trouble believing you've never had a crash and your everyday workstation box.
I wouldn't be so sure. Somebody was speculating things like the patent on the SetUID bit; last I checked BSD had those too.
Hey I remember this program from the Compaq days. Two tips (assuming things haven't changed):
.pdf from them and well the shirt gets worn a lot more than the license plate gets used....
a) The servers were rather stripped so you weren't really showing off too much. You need to put some cool stuff on the servers which shows off what they can do. What is the person trying out True-64 going to see that's going to impressive them?
b) After the test drive you guys sent me a VMS license plate one day FEDEX. I appreciated it but a $3 gift that cost $18 to send.... Anyway go with a nice looking Polo shirt and cheaper shipping. IBM did that when I downloaded a
Just two friendly pieces of advice (not sure if they still apply or not).
lol, you are right on that!
Is there a native 1.4.1 yet, or do you use the Linux version?
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
says the user who was allowed to choose both KDE and Gnome, and then noticed X was configured for neither.
Why in the world should XFree86 be "configured" for a specific desktop? There is an option in the installer to choose a default desktop. Why didn't you choose one, instead of expecting FreeBSD to make the decision for you?
Contrary to most Linux distros, FreeBSD ships XFree86, KDE, GNOME, and every other package "as is" straight from their respective projects. The only changes made are platform specific. You don't get Bluecurve, because neither KDE or GNOME ship with Bluecurve.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Yes, but BSD's indemnified from any patent issues arising from SystemV as part of their settlement years ago.
*BSD's safe.
Is there a native 1.4.1 yet, or do you use the Linux version?
There is an initial patchset for JDK 1.4 but it is said not to have production quality. I am using the Linux version.
How far along has threading come on FreeBSD 5? MySQL suffers on FreeBSD due to this, and although I have heard promises of better things to come in 5, I haven't heard anything concrete.
Catholics don't pray to the saints, they pray to god for the intercession of the saints. There is a huge difference.
But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
Just the other day I wrote the simplest tool in Java and it crashed the VM. And since I'd settled on the Linux version of the JVM being the best choice, I couldn't exactly submit a bug to anyone.
Yes, but FreeBSD works.
Don't you even try to fuckin tell me Gentoo Genital-too runs properly. I have tried that piece of shit every release. If you think that shit is better than FreeBSD you are on crack. I'd rather run RedHat 7.1 than deal with that college kid brewed pile of batshit.
And BSD ports, well sheesh, Wally, I've never seen them not work for the shit I need. bash2, ncftp3, wget, portupgrade, cvsup [oh, CVSup, what a wonder FreeBSD inspired thing ], lsof, rsync, sudo, vim.
Funny, and XFree 4.2.1 works perfect in FBSD as I speak. What a fuckin ass. What, you want XFree CVS snapshots to run? Asswipe.
I personally have not seen a release version on a port not work in FreeBSD. You dumb ass.
> He's one of the 25 active BSD users in the >*ENTIRE UNIVERSE*.
>
>Viva Linux!
If that be the case...
Viva Windows?
shut up troll...
Linux dweebs don't know their C++ from their bungholes.
We all already know that Slashdot will be switching to FreeBSD 5.0 as soon as it comes out, which was stated quite a while ago. I will definatly give it a shot, I dont like the way big linux distributions work, and Slackware isn't supported any more. Plus FreeBSD just has a awesome kernel, and the base system is BAD. Put that together with improved drivers, a great tcp/ip stack (hey they invented tcp/ip), and you've got a awesome OS.
You can call me partial, yeah, I have friends that use FreeBSD, but I really think this will be a big release for FreeBSD, and probably separate it from the whole "dead" BSD group.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Thanks :)
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Yay, they finally got 32bit cardbus support as well. Now i can get rid of that nasty netbsd off my laptop.
i just get amazed how they find this spots on the web...
came on, is bsd.slashdot.org linked already on IE by default?