FreeBSD 5.0 Available

Vegard writes "Although not yet officially announced, the 5.0 version of FreeBSD is beginning to appear on the FreeBSD FTP site and mirrors world wide." Congrats to the developers. Update: 01/19 17:44 GMT by T : Some more detail -- Dan writes "Scott Long of FreeBSD Release Engineering team has officially announced the availability of FreeBSD 5.0 release. Improvements include second generation UFS filesystem, GEOM, the extensible and flexible storage framework, DEVFS, the device virtual filesystem, Bluetooth, ACPI, CardBus, IEEE 1394 and many more! FreeBSD is also available on 64-bit sparc64 and ia64 platforms."

Comments

More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[Amsterdam Vallon]

More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed worldwide each year. For no reason.

Pork is an unhealthy food source. Most people who eat pork also have access to other, non-meat foods.

Pigs are some of the most intelligent beings on our planet. Why do we kill them by the billions? Just to enjoy the transient pleasure of tasting their flesh?

Re:More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[tlund]

Why do we kill them by the billions? Just to enjoy the transient pleasure of tasting their flesh?

Yes.

*feeding the troll*

Re:More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[Anonymous Coward]

Well use Linux then

Re:More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[oliverjms]

Yes, pork is nice.

Re:More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[Chicane-UK]

Yeah.. but bacon tastes good. Pork chops taste good!

And aren't dolphins, whales (and duh, humans?) more intelligent :)

Re:More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[Anonymous Coward]

Pigs often try to eat their newborn piglets. I eat pig products all the time. It's good.

Re:More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[evilmonkey_666]

Pigs are some of the most intelligent beings on our planet. Why do we kill them by the billions? Just to enjoy the transient pleasure of tasting their flesh?

Uh, YES!
HMMMM, Bacon..... *drools*

Re:More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmmm.....I just had some GREAT thick sliced bacon.

Want me to send you pictures?

And yes...we do just kill them for the pleasure of eating them. That's kind of the point of a food source.

Re:More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[Drasil]

'Mmmmmm, dead pig tastes good'

Homer J. Simpson

Re:More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[m1chael]

because if we didnt keep them under control they would eat us!

Re:More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[Anonymous Coward]

Those little fuckers would kill you if they were given the chance.

they're evil, and tasty

Re:More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[Twirlip of the Mists]

If whales are so intelligent, how come it took them so long to catch on to the "harpoons are pointy" idea? I mean, they've got the whole ocean to hide in! How hard is it to stay away from the little boats?

;-)

Re:More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, lets see - there is the fact that whales are at the top of the food chain in the ocean, and have few natural predators once they reach adulthood. Imagine the first few days of hunting in a national park were it ever permitted. You would have animals just sitting there waiting for you to pull the trigger. I've actually had deer walk up to me in parks before - something that *never* happens where hunting is allowed.

There's also the fact that they still have to breathe air, so coming to the surface is a must. Whales can, and do, sense danger, and will try to stay under as long as possible, but eventually they have to come up. All the whaler has to do is track it with a sonar, an unbelievably easy task given the size of the animal, until then.

Not really a fair fight, is it?

Re:More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[Anonymous Coward]

Pig's a filthy animal Vincent....

Re:More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to kill and eat you. Fuck the pigs.

How do you like them apples? Pig?

Re:More than 1.1 billion pigs are killed each year

[chunkwhite86]

Yes. Just to enjoy the transient pleasure of tasting their flesh. Got a problem with that? Mmmmm... Bacon is good!

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

I confirm: *LINUX is the one that's dying.

Release Notes

[Squeezer]

If you want to see what is new in FreeBSD 5.0 then click to view the release notes.

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.0R/relnotes.html

Re:Release Notes

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, I can't wait to see what Apple's response to this is. Wonder if they'll rip off the new BSD like they did with KHTML, the Gnu compiler tools and just about anything else they've put their fingers into lately.

The way I look at it they can either take this update onboard and make themselves look worse, or just sit even further behind, both of which suits me just fine!

bye bye apple

Re:Release Notes

[Anonymous Coward]

Rip off? That's how the license works. If you don't like it, don't license software that way (though I'm quite sure you had nothing to do with writing any software). Go cry elsewhere, m'kay?

Re:Release Notes

[Anonymous Coward]

SMPng along with the TrustedBSD stuff are probably the most important changes, but I'm REALLY happy of the POSIX compliance changes.

When companies realize the benefits fo the BSD license this will takeover the world.

Re:Release Notes

[MsGeek]

From what I understand, all of the improvements Apple made to KHTML will be in KDE 3.2 when it comes out. Apple *IS* giving back to that project, who says they won't give back to FreeBSD? Considering that Jordan Hubbard is an Apple employee now, they will probably get a lot of pressure to do exactly that.

Re:Release Notes

[micsaund]

I am consistently impressed by the FreeBSD team's ability to document their products. Whenever I need info from RedHat, for example, it ranges from a hassle to a PITA. The FreeBSD team maintains an entire, several hundred page handbook as well as east-to-find release notes, descriptions of their processes, FAQs, and much more.

I realize that many of the "hardcore haxx0rz" don't see the value in this documentation, but the fact that it exists and is maintained shows the professionalism and dedication the FreeBSD team has (which results in a damned fine OS!)

Re:Release Notes

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Some companies are already well aware of the benefits of the BSD license. The net result? One company is now the largest single producer of UNIX operating systems in the world, measured in terms of number of units shipped per year.

The BSD license is a beautiful thing. Software that carries the BSD license can really, seriously, no-shit change the world for the better.

Re:Release Notes

[_typo]

who says they won't give back to FreeBSD?

There's something here you didn't consider. Apple will give back the KHTML changes because the KHTML license says it has to, not out of the kindness of their hearts. As for BSD, Apple is free to take the code and run. Considering that it's been a long time since MacOSX's release, it's pretty safe to assume that's what is happening.

Of course this is perfectly fine since the people that write FreeBSD code chose that license expecting this.

Re:Release Notes

[brad-x]

A great deal of Apple's work in bringing FreeBSD components into the MacOS X platform have been quite specific, I'd be surprised if there were changes/improvements made to the software that were generic enough to include in FreeBSD itself.

Keeping in mind also, Apple doesn't use FreeBSD's kernel, the single point where corporate development would be most valuable; they use mach and a BSD mach_server, and a proprietary (IOKit) system for drivers and such.

Re:Release Notes

[eparusel]

It wasn't a huge thing, but I do recall a little while back a few FreeBSD->Apple people were sporting an NFS torture test tool.

Apparently it helped them squash a few hard to find bugs in NFS on FreeBSD....

Re:Release Notes

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay! Homosexuals the world over can rejoice!

Re:Release Notes

[MagnusDredd]

Idiot. The source for the the rendering engine was released the day they introduced the browser. There was a post on the appropriate mailing list from the Apple Safari team lead to the Konqueror team lead thanking him for his work and pointing out where to get the revised source code. The head of the Konqueror team thanked the Apple team lead, pointing out that they had squashed a really annoying bug that he no longer had to worry about.

Next time before you open your mouth, at least read the vendors site.

http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/webco re /index.html

BTW Windows 2000 also uses BSD tech. I have yet to read or hear anything from Microsoft thanking or even acknowledging the efforts of the BSD developers that involuntarily contributed to Win2k's network stack. If someone has read something of this nature, I'd be interested in a link if possible.

Re:Release Notes

[Penguinoflight]

Your dumb conclusion is almost as dumb as your main facts, it
doesn't go anywhere, and it's dead wrong.
In fact, Apple could have easily, (and legaly) built OS X on Linux, and simply kept aqua back, closed source, just like they did with BSD. The only thing they wouldn't be able to do was release Darwin under a the APL, which wouldn't really matter, because they're not trying to be proprietary with darwin, or make money on it. And apple isn't the biggest Unix software company in the world, they're merely the largest growing due entirely to dumb looking computers (iMac, etc.) and their (fairly) well done gui: Aqua.

Re:Release Notes

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Your dumb conclusion is almost as dumb as your main facts

Wow. With that kind of wit and charisma, how can I hope to win an argument against you?

Good thing I've got a soft spot for lost causes.

Apple could have easily, (and legaly) built OS X on Linux, and simply kept aqua back, closed source, just like they did with BSD.

Maybe, if they'd been extremely careful to do everything just right. They still would have had to use the FreeBSD user environment, because the GNU one is just too restrictive (refer to the infamouse OpenSSL/GNU conflict).

But the most important point is one that you made in passing: "The only thing they wouldn't be able to do was release Darwin under a the APL [sic]." Apple released Darwin and other open source components under the APSL for a reason. Had they thrown their lot in with any GPL component or library, it would have "infected" the entire kernel or userland or whatever, making it impossible for Apple to retain ownership and control of their code.

And apple isn't the biggest Unix software company in the world

No? Computerworld, August 30, 2002: "Rendezvous isn't Apple's first foray into the open-source community. With the release of Mac OS X, Apple became the largest vendor of Unix in the world."

they're merely the largest growing due entirely to dumb looking computers (iMac, etc.)

Wow. You really got me there. We'd better not give Apple any credit for their accomplishments, because their computers look "dumb." You are absolutely right.

Pfff.

Re:Release Notes

[Rick BigNail]

Would you mind sharing some bad experience with Red Hat? I would finally like to try linux - nt /win2000 / winxp is not too bad - and the only legimate choise sounds like RedHat. Slackware and Suse are close second but not close enough.

Re:Release Notes

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Do you realize how horrible that is?

If apple becomes the biggest UNIX vendor it will be no better than if it were MS(ask your grandpa about XENIX).
The When one vender rules them all, we get SMB.

I wont dispute that Apple is one of the biggest UNIX venders, but don't think for a second that that is a good thing.

Re:Release Notes

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot. The word is "vendor." If you want anybody to give a god-damn about what you say, learn to fucking spell.

Re:Release Notes

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? And just how much software has Apple released under the BSD license? I thought so. Can a developer use what Apple built on the BSD kernel in their own projects? Let's run that past their lawyers. I thought so too.
The BSD license is great for companies that want to take from the public commons with no requirement to return. Kinda like Disney, copyright and folktales.

yeaaah

[Anonymous Coward]

at LAST!!

I can vouch for it.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the most stable release ever.

Obey the red demon!

*BSD is dying

[Trolling Thunder]

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 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

Re:*BSD is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you serious? I work for a Fortuen 500 company and we were convinced to convert all our database and inventory servers to FreeBSD. But thanks to you, we're now planning to migrate to Windows .NET! Thanks you, /.!!

Re:*BSD is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! This post is so funny. I guess it was written by a poor Linux luser, sorry, user.

We will see how many features from FreeBSD 5 will be
ported to Linux and presented as Linux innovations, in the same way Microsoft does ...

yes, this is one more example of a typical /. bullshit.

Re:*BSD is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

dude, yu are sop dumb.. BSD is not dying.. why dont you get a clue man.. i bet you just made up all those facts right now.. idiot

BSD is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

And so is your penis.

In

[Anonymous Coward]

SOVIET RUSSIA *bsd is DYING!

But not here.

Oh, hooray

[RPoet]

The release hasn't been announced, which would mean it hasn't reached the mirrors yet, which would mean they need the master FTP server to be up and running. How very convenient of Slashdot to link directly to the master FTP server before this has happened! This is sabotage.

Re:Oh, hooray

[Fulkkari]

which would mean it hasn't reached the mirrors yet

No. There were already copies of the release, on the mirrors I checked.

Re:Oh, hooray

[krismon]

Actually I believe the mirrors grab from a non-public ftp server.

Re:Oh, hooray

[alsta]

The release hasn't been announced which means that it isn't released yet.

Re:Oh, hooray

[Anonymous Coward]

So what, it is available.

Re:Oh, hooray

[geniusj]

yup.. ftp-master.freebsd.org iirc :)

Re:Oh, hooray

[SonOfSengaya]

> This is sabotage.

You bigheaded guy, you think everybody (or anybody?) wants FreeBSD!?!

:)

Re:Oh, hooray

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Raise your hand if you recognize that software on a public FTP server that is not accompanied by a PGP-signed release announcement and checksum may be trojaned.

Hmm. Nobody?

Re:Oh, hooray

[schulte]

The master server is actually called ftp-master.freebsd.org, which is only accessible by the official mirror sites. You can read about the FreeBSD distribution system at: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/article s/releng/distribution.html.

From the BSD 5.0 Bugs Page

[Amsterdam Vallon]

... occasionally the SCSI BIOS will hang because of an IRQ conflict

You see, that's the problem. People keep trying to insist on putting a SCSI card in their machines.

SCSI is obsolete. Your storage drives haven't needed to be interfaced over a 'smart controller card' since the motherboard's expansion stopped being through 8 MHz ISA slots.

Forget BSD. SCSI is indeed what is dead.

Re:From the BSD 5.0 Bugs Page

[Anonymous Coward]

You're the moron with the pork post. I ate at KFC the other day for no other reason than PETA started up their Kentucky Friend Cruelty bullshit.

Also, smart controller cards are nice for adding large drives to older machines. When my 6.4GB hdd filled up, I upgraded to one that was 60GB. Not only was my motherboard too old to support that large of a drive, but so was my Windows95. I popped in a smart controller card, and everything worked flawlessly. I have 20GB for Windows, 20GB for Linux, and 20GB more FAT32 storage.

Re:From the BSD 5.0 Bugs Page

[Angry White Guy]

Amsterdam Vallon, are you the one responsible for arguably the best first post ever?

Check my sig,

Re:From the BSD 5.0 Bugs Page

[caino59]

SCSI is sorta dead if you are looking a win9x point of view....you will get faster performance from an IDE drive there.

But for a server (and I hope you aren't using BSD to play games on) SCSI is where it's at (although SATA shows promise, the tech still has a little maturing to do)

SCSI sub-systems handle loads much better and are much better at dishing out data.

Re:From the BSD 5.0 Bugs Page

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Actually I would have said that motherboards that have IRQ's, and therefore IRQ conflicts, are dead. But so many people see, for reasons that amaze me, to persist in using them. Weird.

Re:From the BSD 5.0 Bugs Page

[Anonymous Coward]

But for a server (and I hope you aren't using BSD to play games on)

Why not? I have FreeBSD on my home system and through FreeBSD's Linux emulation mode I am able to play the Linux client for "Return to Castle Wolfenstein". I have a GeForce 3 and NVidia finally released FreeBSD drivers.

Re:From the BSD 5.0 Bugs Page

[Anonymous Coward]

All systems with any sort of firm asynchronous timing requirements have to deal with interrupts. The only alternative is polling, which really only works if you know the inputs a priori, or there is sufficient time (buffering) that you can afford to wait. This can be done if FIFO's or other buffering circuits are used to fill the gap.

Nevertheless, polling isn't a very high performance solution, and if you don't exactly match or exceed your data rate, you risk losing data due to buffer overruns. (hence the half full, almost full and full flags on every FIFO made)

That said, there is more than one way to implement interrupts. In the past, PC cards had to share a fixed pool of 15 (or 14 depending on how they were wired) interrupts. In some cases, you couldn't fill every slot because onboard peripherals would hog the lion's share of the interrupts. Packard bell "modem+sound" cards were terrible about this, using as many as 4 interrupts (and offering little in return)

Other systems, like the original Macs, had a single interrupt line, and the cards issued a response to a query from an interrupt controller. This allowed Macs to ignore, for the most part, interrupt limitations, but imparted a slight speed penalty due to interrupt processing overhead. (it took some cycles to figure out which driver to hand control over to)

Modern architectures use a hybrid of the two approaches, combining the best of both worlds. Interrupt sharing between multiple PCI cards, for example. A NIC and SCSI controller can share the same interrupt number, but are distinguishable based on their ID's and location on the bus. There's also the "modern" APIC IO which allows up to 60 or more "interrupt" lines (it has an interrupt controller inside that remaps the lines)

IOW, interrupts aren't an issue anymore. You will run out of devices long before you run out of interrupts.

Re:From the BSD 5.0 Bugs Page

[TheLink]

Huh? When did IRQs die?

Edge triggered IRQs were a bad design that somehow got into PCs.

Level triggered IRQs are so much saner and was actually supported by the x86 but the PC architecture somehow screwed that up. They can be shared easily. Devices which want to interrupt pull the level down. If the device has been served, it stops pulling down. When the level goes back up it means all devices are satisfied. So there wouldn't be a good reason for IRQ conflicts.

Re:From the BSD 5.0 Bugs Page

[Anonymous Coward]

SCSI is far from dead. While ATA/EIDE may give good performance in a single-user desktop mode, for a real server-class system, SCSI will blow it away. In fact your "smart controller card" thing shows just how silly ATA/IDE really is. In this day of offloading graphics to high-end GPU (NVidia, etc) cards, it is silly to bog down the CPU with meaningless management of disks.

Also, ATA/IDE relies on a max of two drives per cable. We've used ATA Raid controllers at work, yet even then we wind up with a mess of cables. Perhaps hanging 7 drives (15 with wide SCSI) on one cable is not "efficient" in your mind???

Just why do you think it is that real Compaq/Dell/IBM "server" class machines all use SCSI? Its because while ATA might be a good "cheap" alternative for commodity desktop machines, nothing beats SCSI on a server.

Deja vu...

[Anonymous Coward]

So... did you write the original? That's pretty funny.

Nice linking

[Openadvocate]

Now why would you link directly to a FTP server? We all know that a lot of people will begin to download a +600MB ISO file and that no single FTP server would be able to handle the Slashdot crowd. Now I hope that the people here that wants to download FreeBSD has the brain power to check the mirror list first, if they not already has a favorite mirror. Still the proper thing to do, would be to link to the mirror list directly.
Also by using the mirror list, our US friends wouldn't have to download from a server in Denmark, but maybe a local one instead. Oh, well I guess that's just me, but I really think that in the lengthly, time consuming screening process of each article, someone would show a bit of responibility, knowing the effects, posting a article with links have.

Re:Nice linking

[mikerod]

I guess since *BSD is dying the /. editors saw no harm in linking :-))

Re:Nice linking

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's the *BSD FTP server that's dying ?

Re:Nice linking

[JimmyGulp]

Given that I have a couple of friends who knew it was released on Friday, and had downloaded it and installed it. I think the mirrors will have had time to catch up.

Also, I think that most FreeBSD users will be sensible enough to find a mirror, not all slashdotters are alike. Some are sensible, others are still learning.

Re:Nice linking

[Anonymous Coward]

We all know that a lot of people will begin to download a +600MB ISO file and that no single FTP server would be able to handle the Slashdot crowd

Doesn't the FTP server run FreeBSD? If it was running *Linux, then I'd agree, but because it runs FreeBSD, I'm sorry, your claim can't be true.

Re:Nice linking

[b0r1s]

Now why would you link directly to a FTP server? We all know that a lot of people will begin to download a +600MB ISO file and that no single FTP server would be able to handle the Slashdot crowd..

Correction: No single Linux server would be able to handle the Slashdot crowd. A single FreeBSD server can do it easily.

http://www.bsdtoday.com/2000/October/News296.html.

This is from 2 years ago, many advancements have been made, particularly to the hardware and network stack, so assume that these numbers are on the very low end of estimates.

"We're very pleased to have servers that we built, running the FreeBSD operating system, set new milestones like this. It really shows just how well our large servers can perform in real-world situations using freely available software", Greenman said. "Equally impressive is the server's stability. It was pumping out upwards of 300 million bits per second to over 3000 users at a time for the past several days without a glitch and has been operating crash-free under similarly high loads for nearly two months now."

Re:Nice linking

[Anonymous Coward]

I got disconnected with "Socket Error" 3 times trying to get disc1 iso. The servers affected were ftp.freebsd.org and ftp3.freebsd.org

Stable my ass.

Re:Nice linking

[axxackall]

Correction: No single Linux server would be able to handle the Slashdot crowd. A single FreeBSD server can do it easily.

For business it doesn't matter single or cluster. For business the keyword is scalability.

Linux have much more than BSD ways for scaling up. BSD was designed to work as a single server (with single CPU). Besides, I wanna ask: how is BSD good with journalling and RAIDs on that sinlge server?

Re:Nice linking

[SonOfSengaya]

Yeah, because they just updated to 5.0...

Re:Nice linking

[wass]

That said, can someone knowledgeable offer some sort of explanation for why FreeBSD is able to support a higher network load than linux? Is the above link a real unbiased comparison?Does it have anything to do with linux being monolithic kernel? I thought Linux used the FreeBSD TCP/IP stack too, so wouldn't this seem to put them on roughly equal par? Are there any technical reasons the Linux kernel hackers haven't been able to catch up to FreeBSD's abilities?

Sorry to open the door for scores of both Linux and *BSD trolls to jump in with stupid responses like "myOS rox, yourOS sux", but hopefully there will be at least one level-headed response. Thx.

Re:Nice linking

[Beetjebrak]

From my experience (FreeBSD fileservers under pretty heavy punishment from a publishing house internally) I can say RAID works like a charm using vinum. Of course it supports hardware RAID controllers, but those should perform roughly equally under every OS.

Journaling, well, I don't think one could call SoftUpdates actual journalling.. but it works like a charm really. It's fast, reliable and there are no lenghty fsck's for when the server ever needs to reboot (security patches).

The servers I speak of have been running steadily for well over a year without any unplanned reboots. Of course I reboot them when security patches demand it, but those are few and many don't even require rebooting. I also had a disk blow up on me some months ago. Vinum did what it had to do and the box just kept on running. (Whose slogan is that again?? I never had this kind of 'luck' with NT-servers. RAID would work, but the box would go south together with a disk fairly soon)

As for the single CPU-bit: I don't have any first-hand experience with SMP-systems but I hear 5.0 has some really great support for SMP in its kernel quite on par with Solaris. Fileserving witn Samba, Netatalk and NFS isn't exactly taxing on the CPU, so I'd like to hear some experiences from people who do run renderfarms on FreeBSD.

Re:Nice linking

[ianezz]

I thought Linux used the FreeBSD TCP/IP stack too

No, Linux has its own implementation of networking code rewritten from scratch.

This is why problems affecting the traditional *BSD implementation of TCP/IP (which is used pratically everywhere except for Linux) don't usually affect Linux. Of course, the opposite is also true.

That said, the FreeBSD kernel is known (or, at least, it has been known) for being able to handle high load/low resource conditions far more gracefully than Linux.

Re:Nice linking

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Does it have anything to do with linux being monolithic kernel?

FreeBSD is also built on a monolithic kernel. Monolithic kernels tend to be as fast or (usually) faster than MicroKernels - no message passing, everything is essentially 'global' and readily accessed. As far as monolithic goes, you might be having a brainfart about MacOS X, which is a MicroKernel (Mach) with a kernel level BSD blob (a mix of Free and NetBSD).

FreeBSD has always been able to withstand higher loads than Linux. Just been around longer. It has a more mature VM that can take the load, and has a more mature TCP/IP stack.

Not a troll, I just FreeBSD has stability advantages over Linux under high load. Linux has a lot of other advantages, take your pick. I don't know why folks get into religious arguments and start yelling over what free UNIX you should use. "You know if you use THIS free, stable, x86 UNIX-like system with a lot of application support, you're real cool, but if you use THAT free, stable, x86 UNIX-like system with a lot of application support, you're a total asshole man." I must be clueless; I just don't get it.

Re:Nice linking

[SonOfSengaya]

Hey, that was just a joke! :)

Re:Nice linking

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

From the efficient screensaver dept.: POKE 53281,0:POKE 53280,0

So when is FreeBSD being ported to the C-64? Or would that actually be a NetBSD port...

Re:Nice linking

[Anonymous Coward]

I must be clueless; I just don't get it.

It's pretty obvious: small penises.

Re:Nice linking

[__past__]

I never had the chance to try FreeBSD SMP support yet, but I strongly doubt that it is as good as Solaris'.

Solaris is running on systems with lots of processors (as in several hundreds) for years. Even if SMPng adresses such huge systems at all (which I simply don't know), don't underestimate the value of years of debugging and tuning, not to mention controling both the hardware and software part at once.

That said, I'm just configuring my (single CPU) Ultra5 to netboot FreeBSD 5.0 :)

Re:Nice linking

[b0r1s]

Linux have much more than BSD ways for scaling up. BSD was designed to work as a single server (with single CPU). Besides, I wanna ask: how is BSD good with journalling and RAIDs on that sinlge server?

Journalling is a hack to an already poor filesystem. Well designed filesystems, such as UFS, support other means to ensure correctness. UFS and UFS2 support softupdates, which ensure consistency. Journalling, such as that in ext3, are hacks added to fix design problems.

As for scaling: the single advantage of linux over bsd in scaling is the introduction of Mosix clustering for Linux, and the newer SMP code brought by IBM to the Linux project. The fact that BSD was used by projects such as Yahoo and Hotmail should suggest that it does scale quite well.

Re:Nice linking

[iie1195]

You said it all, buddy. Thank you. (Seriously. I don't get the fuzz "mine if bigger than yours" either...)

Re:Nice linking

[Anonymous Coward]

me too, infact i'm putting 5.0 on both of mine
(ultra 5's that is)
http://blackhowling.net/images/myboxen/DCP_04 10.jp g

Re:Nice linking

[ejungle]

Holy fucking shit.

According to freesoftware.com, the server runs FreeBSD on a one 550MHz Intel Pentium-III Xeon CPU-based machine with 4GB of memory, a gigabit ethernet adapter and two 200GB TeraSolutions TSR-2200 RAID-5 storage systems.

Sure, pushing bits isn't that hard. But this is a tiny box, especially when you've got 3000 different connections asking for various bits of data from a RAID 5 array (the slowest of raid configurations, great economy though...) That's where things get impressive. Sure most of the files are cached in the 4GB of memory, but to my knowledge any filesystem navigation requires real disk reads. To do that and maintain responsiveness while pushing 300Mbps is pretty impressive. I would have liked to see how fast FTP 'ls' commands returned results.

My esteem for FreeBSD has always been high, but it just "took it up another notch."

Insert clip of BSD Daemon shouting, "BAM!"

Now, to install it on my scavenged Pentium 90... *sob*

Re:Nice linking

[axxackall]

if journalling is just a hack, why IBMuse it instead of UFS? I don't believe that journalling is just a hack. It's reliability has been proven by several new-designed open source and commercial filesystems: ReiserFS, XFS, JFS.

As for Ext3, it's been improved, not hacked. And counting its age it's already reliable. Compare to UFS back to the same age.

As for scaling, I doubt that IBM made a mistake choosing Linux as a replacement for AIX. Otherwise, why IBM did not do the same or similar step as Apple did? The answer is simple: IBM doesn't trust to non-scalable design of BSD.

Recent news from SGI (Linux on new SGI servers) just proves it.

Re:Nice linking

[Anonymous Coward]

As for the pro-Linux slant from IBM and SGI... lets not forget, these are companies that judge success on how many units they ship. If plastering "Linux" in big, bold letters accross their ads helps the CIO of whatever company to say "yeah, we need that" then you better believe that they'll do it. They support it because it gets more recognition, and thus, sells more units.

The same can be said for why ports of JFS and XFS exist. Thats not even considering that they aren't even necessary for FreeBSD anyway. Anyone who has used FreeBSD on a regular basis can attest to the reliability of UFS.

I wouldn't call Ext3 reliable under any circumstances. I've seen Ext2, Ext3, and ReiserFS corrupt in bad situations. I can't say the same for JFS or UFS (haven't tested XFS yet), they stand up well to pretty much anything you throw at them.

Re:Nice linking

[Mithy]

I downloaded the RC2 ISO a while back and started cvsup'ing RELENG_5_0, thankfully, so no fighting for bandwidth for me :)

Re:Nice linking

[Bert64]

Not to mention the fact that SUN ditched their BSD-based OS (SunOS 4.0 and earlier) to create a SysV based OS (Solaris, AKA SunOS 5.x) that would be better suited to their newer multiprocessor systems.
As for journaling and UFS... Linux has had UFS support for years, but it`s not so widely used.. if it was as brilliant as you say, people wouldnt have bothered making journaled filesystems for linux.

Re:Nice linking

[Bert64]

But it is a hardware raid5 solution, with custom hardware to perform the checksumming and such, so as far as the computer is concerned it`s just got a big fast SCSI disk attached to it.

Re:Nice linking

[Beetjebrak]

I actually forgot.. POKE 646,0 or you'd be stuck with a blinking blue cursor that could still burn a neat little square into your screen given enough time ;-)

Re:Nice linking

[Shanep]

The answer is simple: IBM doesn't trust to non-scalable design of BSD.

All our filesystem are belong to you?

Re:Nice linking

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun didn't "ditch" their BSD based system for a SysV based system for the reason that you specify. They had a (now historic) corporate partnership with AT&T, and as a result they were pressured toward a change of platform. Read your UNIX history man.
Not that your argument has anything to do with current scalability or filesystem issues to begin with. BTW, incase you didn't know, Solaris still uses UFS.

Linux is the test bed king for a variety of things, experimental filesystems are just one of them. Using your own argument, why doesn't every proprietary UNIX use ReiserFS or Ext3 if they're so great?
Because they aren't reliable.

People aren't brilliant, that's the problem. Everybody wants their own name on a filesystem of their own concept and design. That just wont fly with the BSDs, nobody is going to sacrifice relaibility for a performance concept that works well part of the time. But because of the splintered, uneducated masses of Linux users, concept filesystems flourish.

Re:Nice linking

[Anonymous Coward]

The release of Mach NeXT and Apple use was pre-microkernel Mach. Which doesn't matter particularly much when they have their BSD layer sitting in kernel space with the rest of the system sitting on top of it.
I also have no idea where you got NetBSD from.

Re:Nice linking

[ejungle]

True...

But you still have to make the most of your PCI bandwith. Honestly, I didn't stop to think that it would be a card. Probably because I can't afford one, so all I've been looking into is software solutions for my crappy hardware.

Thanks for reminding me that the internet isn't run on piecemeal intel boxes.

Regards,
jungleboy

Re:Nice linking

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop using Linux to do the download. Then you'll have network stability.

Re:Nice linking

[Bert64]

But again, on a server motherboard theres likely to be multiple pci busses, possibly 64bit and/or 66mhz pci aswell, which is capable of much higher transfer rates than 32bit 33mhz pci.

Re:Nice linking

[ejungle]

Yes, I was aware of that. I'm not a complete idiot.

Hurrah for the BSD Team

[puto]

I use Linux and Free BSD. BSD was my first real delve into the Unix fold. A damn fine server OS and used by more people than most would think. SMP at its finest IMHO.

The team takes its time with updates, does them right the first time and make it a true pleasure to work with.

Kudos guys.

Puto

Re:Hurrah for the BSD Team

[krismon]

SMP at its finest has yet to be seen, hopefully 5.0 will make your statement true, but with 4.x and below, we've had to switch to Linux for our databases because the threading wasn't managed by the kernel, and thus you can't have more than one thread from the same process on multiple processors at once. Pretty much useless for some applications, might as well just have 1 cpu.

Re:Hurrah for the BSD Team

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, actually, FreeBSD 4.x can have threads managed by the kernel, it is just not many programmers can be bothered to code for them because there is no nice wrapper library.

Check out "man rfork_thread" which provides the same level of threading as Linux does (and Linux threading is not that great - far too heavyweight IMHO).

But, you are right, hopefully KSE in 5.0 should place FreeBSD at the forefront.

Jamie.

Re:Hurrah for the BSD Team

[marcovje]

>SMP at its finest IMHO.

In the RC's, SMP was broken for pentium-I's I found out with an old Proliant 1500.

So I suppose it is in release too.

Re:Hurrah for the BSD Team

[geniusj]

Did you report it?

Re:Hurrah for the BSD Team

[b0r1s]

In the RC's, SMP was broken for pentium-I's I found out with an old Proliant 1500.

So I suppose it is in release too.

Did you file a bug report? Post it to a mailing list? What PR numbers are associated with your broken SMP?

If you don't file a bug report, how can you assume someone will fix it?

Re:Hurrah for the BSD Team

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you file a bug report? Post it to a mailing list? What PR numbers are associated with your broken SMP?

If you don't file a bug report, how can you assume someone will fix it?


Why the fuck should I waste my time submitting a bug report so that crApple or Microsoft can benefit from my effort?

The BSD license is why people don't submit bug reports. The bug reporters intellectual property is not protected.

Re:Hurrah for the BSD Team

[Anonymous Coward]

trust me your effort means jack shit you fat, pasty white, moma's boy.

kewsh

Re:Hurrah for the BSD Team

[marcovje]

Yes, the answer is that Pentium I SMP is broken, as far as I understood both on 4.x as 5.x

(we indeed could run 4.x single processor, and SMP
kernels from both branches crashed)

Jesus Saves!

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus Saves!

Re:Jesus Saves!

[Electric Troll]

It's unfortunate that not even Jesus can save *BSD.

Part of the team

[Amsterdam Vallon]

I'm one of the many contractors that Yahoo hires out once or twice every year to perform maintainance on their systems.

Normally it's just straightforward backups and security updates on certain network applications, but this past month we were working to actually upgrade to this most recent version of FreeBSD. It was hard enough to do since we're already converting to a PHP-based system for all the customizable Web pages, but couple that with new unforeseen FreeBSD bugs and you have a hell of a problem on your hands.

If our experience at Yahoo has been any indication, I strongly encourage any administrators out there to hold off a bit until an update to 5.0 is presented. I know we have a ton of machines and are probably more complex than most software dev houses, it sure isn't pretty to see 20% of your old data go up in smoke due to a weird package dependency conflict with certain libraries.

Just a heads up.

Re:Part of the team

[caino59]

ah so you're the one to blame for all of the borked links I'm running into on yahoo?

just kidding..but seriously...what particular package did you run into problems with?

Re:Part of the team

[sniggly]

You'll need to substantiate your claims a bit. FreeBSD 5.0 has been a long time in coming, hasn't officially been released, and here you are claiming its buggy. Links, package names, no fud.

A few mirros

[KAMiKAZOW]

The ISOs are not yet on all mirrors, but at least on the following servers:
ftp://ftp.uk.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ISO -IMAGES-i3 86/5.0/
ftp://ftp2.uk.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ISO -IMAGES-i 386/5.0/
ftp://ftp5.uk.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/IS O-IMAGES-i 386/5.0/
ftp://ftp6.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ISO-I MAGES-i386 /5.0/
ftp://ftp14.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ISO-IMA GES-i38 6/5.0/

Please look also if the files appeared on the other mirrors.

Re:A few mirros

[__past__]

Please look also if the files appeared on the other mirrors.

No, please don't. Wait until it's released. The ISOs may still change without notice, destroy your computer and piss in your fish bowl. Say with me: These files do not contain a released FreeBSD version.

And, of course, instead of downloading ISO images, consider using CVSup to save time and bandwidth. Or at least don't download all ISOs - you don't need all packages, and installing the stuff you want from the network works without any problems.

Re:A few mirros

[Anonymous Coward]

you said all!

maria felisberta henriqueta engracia alberta joaquina pimentel vasconcelos

Re:A few mirros

[schulte]

http://www.freebsdmirrors.org/ also is supposed to show you a single view of what mirrors carry what files. It appears to be a bit behind right now, but bookmark the page for future reference.

My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Stanley Feinbaum]

I managed to get a free copy of freebsd thanks to my status as a journalist, however I was sadly disappointed by this product.

I attempted to install freebsd on my IBM laptop, however I discovered my particular model was not compatible (which is odd, since it runs win2k just fine, which has many BSD elements in it). I decided to try it on my p4 system which I use for games occasionally. Unfortunately I discovered that BSD refused to be installed on my NTFS partition, and I was required to create a new partition! I have never had this problem with windows before and was baffled at the amount of work BSD forces one to take on just to get it installed! I decided to abort my attempt at reviewing BSD since it didn't seem to work on any of the systems I had! Furthermore I discovered that not only does Freebsd not run any new games, it doesn't even run Microsoft office, the standard office program! A truly terrible computer product!

I give FreeBSD 1/10

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[BusterB]

If you want NTFS support for FreeBSD, simply find a source of unencumbered documentation on that FS and let the developers know where you found it. Having trouble? I thought so!

NTFS is intentionally underdocumented, so most attempts to support it in other OS's have been mostly reverse-engineering attempts. You could sign an NDA, but probably wouldn't be able to write free code with that information. Do not blame FreeBSD for not supporting undocumented features of another OS.

If you have an example of any non-Microsoft OS that can install on NTFS, please prove me wrong!

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to worry my friend. Pretty soon you will be able to download mslinux from mslinux.org
:-)

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

YHBT Fucktard

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

I do hope youre not a computer journalist. If this is how you review a product.

--
fdfs

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

I've yet to check out free bsd (ducks!)
I don't know the specifics, but I'll bet that no os but NT and up installs on NTFS.
I think you're a M$ hack. "required to make a new partition"!? It's a new OS, not Doom! Baffled at the amount of work? You must never have installed NT4 before. A 1/10 compared to windows??(Since that's obviously what you're doing) Do you own windows?
Frankly, I don't mind a long *nix install since it will run for a long time. Windows, on the other hand, gets registry bloat and perpetualy takes up more space. M$ needs to make it easy to install, you need to reinstall it every 6mo to a year or it begins slowing down somethin fierce (even with multiple defrags!)
Never heard of OpenOffice.org huh?
btw, if you want to play games, buy a console. It's less maintainence, and you don't have to upgrade your hardware everytime a new game comes out(Which, btw, will require you to CALL M$ sooner or later so they can console you, and tell you that everythings OK)

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Kiwi]

The parent post was a joke; he was not making fun of FreeBSD. He was making fun of idiot journalists who don't have a clue how things really work, and expect idiot things like support for NTFS.

Of course, your proably have to deal with enough idiot users who demand that kind of BS that it actually looks serious to you.

- Sam

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[phre4k]

If you want NTFS support for FreeBSD, simply find a source of unencumbered documentation on that FS and let the developers know where you found it.

NTFS documentation is provided by these guys: http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/

/Esben

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[1s44c]

Stanley Feinbaum, professional journalist and master debater! Karma = excellent

Your a funny guy.

Just because you don't know how to use it doesn't mean it isn't any good.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

Furthermore I discovered that not only does Freebsd not run any new games,

thats so untrue!!! :)

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[talon77]

I managed to get a free copy of freebsd thanks to my status as a journalist

Wow, I must have jounalist status as well, since I also got a free copy of freebsd. (hmm.. maybe thats why they call it "free"bsd)

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

>Unfortunately I discovered that BSD refused to be installed on my NTFS partition, and I was required to create a new partition!

Its funny i had the same problem with my windows it refuse to install in my BSD partition.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Sycraft-fu]

Uhh first off, I think the parent post is joking, making fun of moronic journalists. Secondly, pages 700-777 of "Inside Microsoft Windows 2000" (an MS book) provide a very good starter NTFS reference. Also the MSDN section on NTFS (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url =/library/en-us/fileio/base/ntfs.asp) is another place to look. Finally, NTFSDOS is a third party, commercial, tool that allows DOS to access NT drives.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

You're judgement of this FreeBSD release is stupid and out of proportion.

First of all. You dont run FreeBSD or any other OS, for that matter, without checking atleast a bit of info before you begin.
I can by your post truely see that you havent even givin FreeBSD a chance to begin with.

I too have an IBM laptop (thinkpad 600X) which I run FreeBSD without problem. The only thing I had to do was to upgrade my BIOS and the FreeBSD iso booted just fine. This problem with the BIOS isnt particularly to FreeBSD. Some Linux distro's also have problems about this matter.

And the issues about FreeBSD not running on NTFS, doesn't have support for any new games and doesn't even run Microsoft Office.
Why should BSD be installed on NTFS when it has it's own and, to some, better filesystem?
Have you ever checked the reasons why new games arent, as the primary, developed for Linux or BSD?
I can give you a hint. Money.
And what's this about FreeBSD not running Microsoft Office. You say it's the standard office program, so you mean everyone should support and use it? Why should we, when there are free alternatives?

Do you have any idea of what a license is?
Do you have any idea of what FreeBSD is targeting for?

You dont build a house and use it as a boat,
and you surely dont claim the house to be crappy because it doesnt fits your needs,out on the ocean.

Sir! You haven't done your job as a journalist.
You should be ashamed of yourself for giving judgement on something you havent even took the time, nor chance, to show it's greatness.

My judgement!
I give your review 0/10.

-- // kn

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[debaere]

" ... it doesn't even run Microsoft office, the standard office program! A truly terrible computer product!"

You are right, MS Office is truly a terrible computer product :)

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

I give your intelligence 0/10. In addition, I give your common sense 0/10.

The parent post was a joke. It may benefit you to study the ancient art of sarcasm recognition.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, NTFSDOS is a third party, commercial, tool that allows DOS to access NT drives.

This is not correct. NTFSDOS uses a hacked version of the ntfs dll from Windows NT so DOS can access the volume. There is no NTFSDOS NTFS code that is unique to NTFSDOS.

This approach is not permissable to free unix operating systems.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

LMAO! HA!

Fucktard...hee hee!

I think this is so funny cause I fried one to many brain cells last night.

Ahhh...Sunday mornings.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[AlanSmitheeX]

Have you heard of PowerQuest Partition Magic? It can resize NTFS partitions and convert them as well.

Not a free product, but you couldn't do that work without having NTFS documentation.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

It loathes me to say anything positive about MS, but Gentoo Linux reads my w2k NTFS partition just fine, and it resides on a Highpoint RAID IDE stripe. Read/write support is part of Gentoo kernel 2.4.19xx though the latter is marked experimental. You're only half right.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[overunderunderdone]

We really need a score:-1 humor impared.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[danoaks15]

You better be joking.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[damiena]

it runs win2k just fine, which has many BSD elements in it

Shouldn't that be BSOD elements?

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[baka_boy]

While I agree that the above post seemed to be in a "toungue-in-cheek" kind of voice, it also made a valid point: for any average business user, even one who is comfortable with doing their own Windows installations/upgrades, the free *NIX world (and the BSDs in particular, w/o RedHat or similar to put out the slick, documented installers) is a challenge to get into.

Personally, I'm very happy doing day-to-day coding and net work on an old Thinkpad 560 running NetBSD, and will probably try FreeBSD 5.0 if the release installer supports wireless PCMCIA cards (NetBSD 1.6 did, much to my surprise!). However, the value of the BSDs is much like the value of Debian, IMHO: they offer lots of low-level control, so you *can* do crazy things (and install them in crazy places) that the maintainers couldn't have imagined.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

You are the smartest person I have ever met!!! You are a genious because you tried to install freeBSD on NTFS.

You deserve a cookie.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[essdodson]

I managed to get a free copy of freebsd thanks to my status as a journalist, however I was sadly disappointed by this product.

Wow, sucks to be me. I guess I'll just have to become a journalist in order to try this out. Is it just me or does this parent smell of BS?

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[5alligator]

-2

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[5alligator]

-3; jeez...

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[TheLink]

Just curious: are you a citizen of the US of A?

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Shanep]

Just curious: are you a citizen of the US of A?

ROFL!!! ; )

Maybe he's one of those "audience" members in one of these bloody US "info"mercials, that other nations now must endure on late night TV.

You know the ones right? That bloody chicken rotisary thing with those dorks WOW'ing and OOHHH'ing and AHHHHH'ing when they see the guy stab the chicken with a sauce gun thing.

FUCK!

Are hollywood movies severely dumbed down because of the target audience or is it because Americans make the movies?

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he's one of those "audience" members in one of these bloody US "info"mercials, that other nations now must endure on late night TV.

You know the ones right? That bloody chicken rotisary thing with those dorks WOW'ing and OOHHH'ing and AHHHHH'ing when they see the guy stab the chicken with a sauce gun thing.

Are hollywood movies severely dumbed down because of the target audience or is it because Americans make the movies?

There is an old saying, "No one ever lost money betting against the intelligence of the [American] people." Thats probably 100 years old, but its been championed by Hollywood and revamped for a global audience.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[TheLink]

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying USA citizens are dumb. It's just rather many of them while apparently intelligent seem to be unfamiliar with satire, subtlety or similar things.

I'm was trying to get another statistical datapoint.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Shanep]

I actually don't think they're stupid either. Rather, they seem to be quite self centred arrogant arseholes, in addition to the satire/subtlety problems...

Remember in South Park, when the kids went to play dodge ball against the Chinese... What do you call an American with a PhD in physics and mathematics?... STUPID AMERICAN!

As an example, recently I saw a small bit of the TV show Race Around the World (or whatever it was called). This loud mouth yankee said while in Vietnam that (loosely quoted) "I come from a generation of soldiers who lost 58,000 here". Christ, how many Vietnamese died in that war!? I can always pick the USA tourists in Sydney, they are both visually and verbally loud and bloody rude. They would seem to be quite ignorant of this though.

Once I was on a light rail going to the Sydney casino with my girlfriend, we saw a sign for "Ketchup". My girlfriend quietly asked me what Ketchup was, so I quitely replied "Tomato sauce". This did of course appear to offend to loud mouth arsehole American man seated opposite us, who loudly proclaimed that "Ketchup IS NOT TOMATO SAUCE". I felt like giving him a good Aussie punch in the mouth. Not because he contradicted me, because he didn't mind his own business and was very rude about it too.

I had an American boss. He was actually a really nice guy, but had THE most incredible ability to rub EVERYONE the wrong way. I think it's the pedestal they place themselves on (mass media provided pedestal). Problem with smart people, is that they can often let it go to thier heads, become arrogant and think they know everything better than everyone else (especially foreiners). So instead of thinking things through, they think they don't need to and go with thier first thoughts on any given subject. Then if they do realise thier error, so as not to loose face, defend that which they do not believe to the bitter end.

Examples like, thier "democracy", right to own semiautomatic pistols (designed to kill PEOPLE, not deer) and other "arms", etc. Just in case thier .gov gets tyrinical or something. Somehow, I don't think a 9mm or even 7.62mm is going to put up much of a fight against the 30mm coming from the AH64 Apache 10km away, hovering between trees at night time with you lit up like a soft glowing meat christmas tree. ; )

What is the statistic? 2.x guns per person in the USA and over 11,000 gun assisted killings each year? What's that, 1 in every 18 thousand USA citizens will be killed with a gun this year? In Australia that statistic is close to 1 in every 307 thousand.

All I can say is... WHAT-EV-ERRRR....

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[quillsta]

Wow that's dumb. I am glad you wasted your own time proving how little time you spend looking before leaping. I build my own boxes take the time to research compatibility.

I am sure you don't have a sticker saying "Optimized for FreeBSD-5.0" your POS laptop.

I just finished installing...one problem...

My CDROM drive is on the fritz so I used my other box to run an FTP installation..smooth as silk

But that's my problem and I have known that drive is going for the past year LOL.

Ports are smoking, Soundblaster Live and SMP support compilation just finished.

I give your shallow, unresearched review of FreeBSD-5.0 a 0/10.

You'd probably give a toaster the same marks for not making ice cubes.

Go FreeBSD team thanks for your efforts and I expect this will be a great release!!!!

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[TheLink]

By the way, in Cantonese:
Fan-Keh = tomato. Chup = generic term for sauce.

AND, not least:

Keh-chup = Cantonese for tomato sauce.

Don't believe me? Should be easy to confirm this yourself if you're in Sydney.

They can't get rid of their guns tho. It's like negotiating nuclear disarmament with 50 million different parties. They've gone too far down that path. We just have to make sure we don't follow them down that path. You better keep a tight rein on the Aussie Gov, they seem to think Australia is the southernmost state of USA (NZ Gov seems less prone to that, but you're all nice Echelon members).

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Shanep]

Keh-chup = Cantonese for tomato sauce.

That's interesting.

They can't get rid of their guns tho.

Oh absolutely. It's a lost cause alright.

You better keep a tight rein on the Aussie Gov, they seem to think Australia is the southernmost state of USA (NZ Gov seems less prone to that, but you're all nice Echelon members).

Tell me about it..

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

lighten up dude. he/she was making a joke! ever heard of those?

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[TheLink]

At this rate you guys should name Aussie stuff after US presidents.

BTW, have you been affected badly by the bushfires?

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[sean23007]

Redmond Linux, now Lycoris, installed on my NTFS hard drive.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Shanep]

BTW, have you been affected badly by the bushfires?

Thankfully no. Thanks for asking.

I live in Bondi (suburban, east of Sydney CBD), so although my unit is surrounded by trees, there's little chance of them going up.

The only effect for me is really the emotion of seeing other Aussies (human and animals) suffering.

Re:My review of FreeBSD 5.0

[Anonymous Coward]

I always loved how NT4 wouldn't install on a "true" NTFS partition. You choose NTFS, and it then creates a FAT partition to install on, and then converts it to NTFS after a real NT boot. Try installing NT4 on a 20Gig disk, telling it to make a 20Gig NTFS partition. Sorry Charlie, NG.

Why the hell anyone would *want* to run Unix on an NTFS partition in the first place is beyond me... Other than ACL's and the like, it is a horrible filesystem compared to the standard unix filesystem.

Of course, all it takes is calling MicroSloth with a server problem to comprehend this. We had a problem a few months back, and one of the comments from our "premier support" was "did you defrag the disk?" Now, I've run Unix boxes for *years*, with fragmentation below 5%, and never had to "defragement" them. Why is it that the MS support person was telling us we should defrag the drive on a "regular basis"??? This is a server-type filesystem????????

Sir

[Anonymous Coward]

You are an excellent troll. I enjoy trolls written by you, and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Hasnt this happened before

[Anonymous Coward]

Time and time again everyone says DO NOT LINK DIRECTLY to the main site, link to a mirror list. The fact that you still linked to the primary site and even said it has not been announced makes me wonder do you ever fucking read our comments. You guys need to develop a checklist before you post news items. 1. is it a dupe? 2. did i spell check this? 3. if there's a link to an product that was just released did i post the mirror link instead of the primary link? 4. And finally ask yourself this question, is this news the slashdot crowd really cares about? (*note this does not pertain to the current story)

Re:Hasnt this happened before

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they do not ever fucking read your comments and I don't blame them. Most people here are snivelling, whiney little shits who probably still live in their parent's basement yet attempt to give out advice on how other people should do everything.

If they didn't want people getting shit from the main FTP, just take the file right the fuck off the server and put a big note there to "get it from the mirror". They didn't do that, so I guess it's fine!

Re:Hasnt this happened before

[shlong]

The FreeBSD project learned it's lesson on this long ago. ftp.freebsd.org is now just a tier-1 mirror, just like any other tier-1 mirror. However, the master site is not publically available.

Also, if you guys want the REAL release announcement, go here

Re:Hasnt this happened before

[derF024]

ftp.freebsd.org is now just a tier-1 mirror, just like any other tier-1 mirror.

why isn't it just a round-robin DNS like http.us.debian.org and most other ftp.*.org sites? wouldn't _that_ be the simple solution, instead of pleading with people on slashdot to "please use one of the mirrors" ?

RC3 was a good experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Good to hear the final 5.0 release is out. I installed FreeBSD 5.0 RC3 on my Pentium 100MHz with 32MB of RAM and I must say I'm really impressed how well the system performs. I'm a console freak so I try to do everything I need to do using console programs. It's been a really great thing to notice all of the utilities I have needed are also available as console programs.
I use "slrn" to read the Usenet news, "lynx"/"links" to surf the web, "mutt" to read/send e-mail, "mpg123" to listen to music/internet radiostations. Truly great experience and imagine it works _really_ smoothly and fast on computer which was bought in 1995. I am impressed and a happy FreeBSD user!

Re:RC3 was a good experience

[1nv4d3r]

I used to be the same way (only w/Linux). I thought there was a sort-of charm in it, I guess.

Then I realized that for $200 I could get a machine immensly faster than my $3000 1995 machine (a P120 w/32MB). And when I get the extra power and memory/HD space, I found ways to make good use of it pretty quick.

So, next time your power supply or HD fizzles out, don't spend $40-60 dollars replacing them? Take the opportunity to upgrade. The console still works fine on these machines, I promise.

Re:RC3 was a good experience

[horcy]

Good to hear there are others that are console only =P The console OWNZ

Re:RC3 was a good experience

[Bert64]

Actually i had a lot of console problems on more modern machines.. Especially when switching between X and the console. Some machines wouldn`t do svga textmodes, and forced me to use framebuffer.. other machines would either corrupt the console, or crash X (and drop me to a corrupted console) when trying to switch between X11 and the console. Also the appeal of using an old machine is that you dont spend any money, when the hd or the psu dies... you dont spend $40-60 replacing it, you get a free replacement from a dumpster.

Well done /.

[gdc34]

The /. 'editors' do it again..

http://bsd.slashdot.org/

N.B. I realise that the post mentioned it hasn't been officially released- but I suspect the FreeBSD team don't want it to be unofficially released to the general public yet.

Re:Well done /.

[mrscorpio]

I guess we're not all clear on how Murray feels about this...

Chris

Announcement.

[saintlupus]

Although not yet officially announced

Uh, maybe there's a reason? Like they want to finish pushing everything out to the mirrors?

--saint

Holy Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

I got my dick stuck in my dog!

Re:Holy Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

How dare you speak that way about my wife!

Re:Holy Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

That happened to me once. So now when I get horny I just cover my dick with jam and get my dog to lick it off.

BREAKING NEWS!

[Anonymous Coward]

FreeBSD 5 is DEAD!

Re:BREAKING NEWS!

[Anonymous Coward]

This post is REDUNDANT. Everyone (well, except the few FreeBSD users) knows that FreeBSD is effectively dead.

Mirror

[huhmz]

Has been available for a couple of days now, since the mirrors are gonna get hit bad now i figure i could contribute with my unofficial 100Mbit mirror.
ISOs for i386 here:
mirror

Dont forget to check the md5sums, I could be an evil blackhat after all. Enjoy.

Re:Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

running Windows 2000 no less?

Sad news ... Stephen King dead at 55

[Anonymous Coward]

I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

Re:Sad news ... Stephen King dead at 55

[Stephen King]

No, I'm not!

FileMirrows.com

[tyrnight]

just go to filemirrors.com and put in the file names.. I am getting 225k from european mirrors... hehe

Re:FileMirrows.com

[caino59]

im getting 610k from a euro server as well.

DING! boy that darn near gives me a chubby.

Re:FileMirrows.com

[returnofthe_spork]

boy that darn near gives me a chubby

You need to get out more. Go...meet some girls or something.

but does RMS like FreeBSD???

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what I've always wanted to know.OK, but I want to help the guy and so I publish his ad on slashdot. (RMS is looking for a woman) The ad is taken from his homepage. Go check it out if you don't believe me.

My Personal Ad
I'm a single atheist white man, 49, reputedly intelligent, with
unusual interests in politics, science, music and dance.
I'd like to meet a woman with varied interests, curious about the
world, comfortable expressing her likes and dislikes (I hate
struggling to guess), delighting in her ability to fascinate a man and
in being loved tenderly, who values joy, truth, beauty and justice
more than "success"--so we can share bouts of intense, passionately
kind awareness of each other, alternating with tolerant warmth while
we're absorbed in other aspects of life.
My 19-year-old child, the Free Software Movement, occupies most of my
life, leaving no room for more children, but I still have room to love
a sweetheart. I spend a lot of my time traveling to give speeches,
often to Europe, Asia and Latin America; it would be nice if you were
free to travel with me some of the time.
If you are interested, write to me and we'll see where it leads.

Re:but does RMS like FreeBSD???

[Ricardo Estalman]

his site is hosted on a FreeBSD server.
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host =www.stal lman. org

Re:but does RMS like FreeBSD???

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Heh, I thought this was a troll, but this is on www.stallman.org. If this actually was written by him the "My 19-year-old child, the Free Software Movement" tells more about the whole GNU/Linux naming thing than a thousand Slashdot trolls ever could.

Re:but does RMS like FreeBSD???

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh that's a laugh riot, Alice. Everyone knows that Stallman loves caramel skinned young boys who don't understand a lick of English but certainly know what a lick can do to an Englishman.

just in case...

[pummer]

... the main ftp server gets Slashdotted, here are some mirrors.

FreeBSD 5.0 NOT released

[cperciva]

Quote from the 4.6 (non)release story:
Murray Stokely writes "We have gone over this for the past 2 releases now. I thought I had made it clear that you were not to publish information about FreeBSD being released until you saw a signed PGP message from one of the release engineers. Are you trying to help the spread of trojanned copies of FreeBSD? The release is not ready yet, and will not be until the front page of FreeBSD.org is updated and a PGP signed announcement message is posted to announce@FreeBSD.org."

Unless the rules have changed, slashdot screwed up again.

Re:FreeBSD 5.0 NOT released

[Simon (S2)]

from the freeBSD Mail archives about the 4.5 announcement:

On Thu, Jan 24, 2002 at 01:43:19PM -0800, Jordan Hubbard wrote:
> Not only am I quoted as somehow having announced it (EH?), but
> slashdot has just announced the availability of FreeBSD 4.5. I've
> already posted a correction as part of the ensuing thread, but just a
> heads-up in case you guys start getting questions about it. From
> everything I can see, somebody recycled my 4.4 announcement or
> something and the slashdot editors didn't even bother to verify it.

And this wonderful newsflash is brought to us only a few weeks after the FIRST "Official" CD release of FreeBSD was pre-announced[1]. I immediately followed that up with a story about the 47th "Official" CD release of FreeBSD to be released on January 26, but they never posted it. The editing at Slashdot has been a joke recently. It is very clear that the posters don't even follow the links in the submissions. I will send some pointers to the editors to make sure this never happens again, as I'm sure many readers have already done.
- Murray

i think he is gonna get very angry this time also :))

Re:FreeBSD 5.0 NOT released

[diamondc]

Read the article title, "FreeBSD 5.0 Available". They never said it was officially released..

Re:FreeBSD 5.0 NOT released

[Anonymous Coward]

That is not the point. The point is, the Slashdot editors are acting irresponsibly by posting this sort of article. FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE has not been released. They are working on propagating it through the mirrors. By posting an article that links to the main FreeBSD FTP server, they are putting an unresonable load on that server and slowing down the mirroring process.

Re:FreeBSD 5.0 NOT released

[rsidd]

In that story, FreeBSD release engineer Bruce A. Mah comments:

This wouldn't be such a big deal except we had a very similar situation in 4.5 with someone posting a bogus release announcement to Slashdot (and having it slip past the editors). I really hope there isn't a third time.

Well, here's hoping there isn't a fourth, Bruce....

Re:FreeBSD 5.0 NOT released

[failedlogic]

Yep, this happened before w/ 4.5 as well. /. posted the link early and was flamed for it. Well by the time I'm reading this it looks as though its "official now". I'll wait a few days for some mirrors and THEN download since it will prob be saturated for a while anyways.

Re:FreeBSD 5.0 NOT released

[danoaks15]

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.0R/announce.html It is my privilege and pleasure to announce the availability of FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE. The culmination of nearly three years of work, this release starts FreeBSD on the path of advanced multiprocessor and application thread support and introduces support for the sparc64 and ia64 platforms. it is released

Re:FreeBSD 5.0 NOT released

[bmah]

Call me an optimist, but yeah, I *am* hoping there isn't a fourth time. :-)

Early annoucements

[__past__]

I really wonder whether CmdrTaco is just too stupid to learn that a FreeBSD version is released when the release is announced by the release managment team and not when some files appear on some FTP sites, or if this has become some weird kind of personal vendetta or insider joke. Not only that he fucked up for every single release for some years now, they even started to announce release candidates early recently.

Despite being idiotic, this behaviour is really harmful. FreeBSD takes care to let their mirrors prepare for the traffic peak when a new version is released. The early "announcements" on slashdot of course mean that the people managing the mirrors - voluntarily, people not only FreeBSD but lots of free software projects depend on - don't have this time to prepare, and might get major problems, which in turn might mean that they decide not to support FreeBSD and other projects by providing bandwidth for free any more.

Unless this is some funky plan of VA Software or whatever their name is this week to push SourceForge, it would be really nice if slashdot could just stop damaging the Free Software infrastructure.

Re:Early annoucements

[Tim C]

They don't just do it to FreeBSD - any time any new version of a major piece of OS software is spotted on an ftp server somewhere, this happens. It has happened (iirc) for X, KDE, Gnome, Mandrake, etc.

Sure, the maintainers could restrict access until everything is ready, then announce the release and open up the servers. But why should they have to?

Jesus people, it only takes a little common courtesy to wait until the announcement is made. Is it really that important to scoop even the project's own site?

Re:Early annoucements

[Anonymous Coward]

uhm, slashdot has been pre announcing software for like ever. redhat starts the mirror with everything not readable. so u can see that it's coming, but you cannot access the files, until a couple days later, when they open up the permissions, and that get's disted out..

so, freebsd is stupid (if you are correct).

Re:Early annoucements

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe CmdTaco is the stupid one. He sets a heck of an example for other editors to follow.

Re:Early annoucements

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you, an idiot?

All of the mirrors (which might or might not have any special account over simple anonymous) need to update too.

dumbass

Re:Early annoucements

[Anonymous Coward]

There are few who are actually more stupid than Sgt. Taco. As such, very few will actually follow his example.

You may all note that I did not accede to Sgt. Taco the descriptor of 'editor'. He isn't. He's just some guy without the benefit of feedback since he's virtually deaf & dumb.

No slam intended to people who are deaf & dumb through no fault of their own.

Re:Early annoucements

[Anonymous Coward]

What else would you expect from a bunch of linux kids.

Keeping it a secret.

[vskjefst]

If you don't want the public to spot your releases until they are officially announced, then you should keep them hidden. Upload your files with restricted access to the master ftp and all mirrors, issue the press release, THEN make the files public.

Re:Keeping it a secret.

[Glytch]

I wish I hadn't used up all my mod points last week. You deserve a +5 at least. I guess bitching about Slashdot is easier than learning about chmod.

Re:Keeping it a secret.

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess bitching about Slashdot is easier than learning about chmod.

I'm sorry, but Slashdot deserves any flames they get for this. Taco & crew call themselves editors, but they never fact check, rarely even read the articles submitted, and apparently never even read their own site!

As a protest to their retardation, I'm officially blocking all slashdot banner ads until OSDN fires all these worthless CS code monkeys and gets some real editors in here.

Re:Keeping it a secret.

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you, an idiot?

All of the mirrors (which might or might not have any special account over simple anonymous) need to update too.

Dolt.

Re:Keeping it a secret.

[jdparker]

do you have any idea how much effort it would take to get 100 or more mirror operators to make the files available all at once?

and making the change on the master ftp server isn't an option either, as many people use various methods of mirroring, from something as simple as just a ftp mirror script, to rsync, and probably others.

This also gives them a chance to work out bugs, and problems before it's officially a release.

Re:Keeping it a secret.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple kept the 17" house trailer secret for 8 months from a full army of spys trying to predict/uncover/expose what would be released at MWSF. If they can keep secret hardware and software, FreeBSD could do allot better keeping there sh1+ secret. Either that or don't complain about it when ./ posts it. Or at least design a better system of mirror preparation and release--such as simply limiting dir structure access to rc files by default on all systems. Of course it's too late for that-is FBSD evolving into kinda of like the other lumbering unyielding corporate giants who take 25 miles to turn their battleships?

Re:Keeping it a secret.

[Blkdeath]

If you don't want the public to spot your releases until they are officially announced, then you should keep them hidden. Upload your files with restricted access to the master ftp and all mirrors, issue the press release, THEN make the files public.

Thank you for that.

I just have one thing to add here;

I've been reading all these comments from the BSD crowd here in awe. I mean, all this hostility over... what? An announcement that linked to a PGP-signed release announcement. The ISOs are on the servers. The time to rejoice is nigh! But no rejoicing from this crowd. No "Awesome new features ... I can't wait to test this on my home rig ... " postings; just adolescent whining.

Seriously folks; you respect the FreeBSD development team, right? You respect their programming talents and their combined decades of computer, operating system, and networking experience, right? Do you really take them to be this naive? Would you really have us believe that they would roll release-grade, Version 5.0 (no RC-*) CD images and make them public when they weren't ready? Do you really think they'll be at all SURPRISED when people start to notice, download, and tell all their friends about this release? Don't you think they have a solid, stable (FreeBSD) FTP server pumping out these requests, properly configured with reasonable user/transfer limits in place, and QoS on their upstream bandwidth? If you're that unsure of FreeBSD's ability to handle high loads - why are you downloading it?

It was inevietable that this would find its way to Slashdot. That's how Slashdot works. It's been seen time and time again. KDE, GNOME, Linux Kernel, XFree86, [Open|Star]Office, or any other project of significant magnitude (and interest) - the release files are made publically available, someone notices and the Slashdot editors respond to the influx of "It's here! It's here!" submissions. As a result, Slashdot is very often the first place to find out about new software updates. Is this really 'news' to anyone?

Sure, they could link to the mirrors, but not doing so isn't by any means a conspiracy, it may be poor taste, but it's the same taste that links directly to kernel.org when a new Linux kernel is released. It's been pointed out to me more times than I can count that Slashdot readers are "IT professionals" - so stop talking about being professional and act like it. Download reaponsibly; use a mirror.

I'll download a mini-ISO later, when the tide has ebbed, and install it at my leisure.

</RANT>

Re:Keeping it a secret.

[shlong]

As the release manager for FreeBSD 5.0, this situation was disappointing for me because:

1. I had formed an agreement with Hemos last week that Slashdot would only accept submissions from the release engineering team and/or PR team for this.
   
2. The story that did get posted was crap. It didn't have a link to an announcement, release notes, or anything.
   

On all, it was very unprofessional of the Slashdot editorial team.

Re:Keeping it a secret.

[UU7]

heh, considering this new info... I'd have to agree.

Re:Keeping it a secret.

[Strog]

1. NTP sync your clock
2. use cron to chmod +r *.iso at release time
3. profit

It really could be easy to do. Just set your time on the cron job to GMT or adjust for your offset. It could all be totally automated if you really want. It shouldn't matter if there are 2 or 2gillion mirrors.

Re:Keeping it a secret.

[Anonymous Coward]

> I had formed an agreement with Hemos last week that Slashdot would only accept submissions from the release engineering team and/or PR team for this.

Too bad this was posted by CmdrTaco, not Hemos; apparently the ""editors"" don't talk to each other very much.

Frankly, I'd stop making agreements with the ""editors"" and just make your own plans knowing they'll screw up, every single time.

FreeBSD Mirror sitres

[bihoy]

When FreeBSD 5.0 is officially released you should be able to get it from one of the FTP sites in the official list.

FTP Sites

Mirroring with peer2peer networks

[root 66]

Would be great if those who already completed their downloads of the iso files could share them using their favourite peer2peer program to take some load off of the FTP servers.

Re:Mirroring with peer2peer networks

[TheRaven64]

This is a good idea, and something I tend to do with everything I get from the 'net, from ISOs to drivers via Kazaa. I think quite a few other people do as well. When UT2003 demo was released, I saturated my cable modem getting it from Kazaa, but couldn't even connect to the 'official' download servers. Perhaps next time some numpty decides to slashdot an ftp server people should search p2p systems before clicking on the 'let's kill out favourite OS's ftp server' button...

Re:Mirroring with peer2peer networks

[krokodil]

Apparently P2P newtworks do not support
free softwate much. I could not find neither
FreeBSD or Linux images on Gnutella.

Re:Mirroring with peer2peer networks

[Istealmymusic]

Since when can anything be found on Gnutella?

Re:Mirroring with peer2peer networks

[Arandir]

I've got a friend who is a hardcore P2P pirate. If he is any indication, then you won't find any free software because it's legally free. They don't want legally free, they want to steal. They judge the value of software on its retail price.

Quote one: "No I don't want to borrow your Linux CD, it's free you idiot! Why would I want it if it's free?"

Quote two: "What do you mean you don't want a ripped Photoshop? It's $500 in stores you idiot!"

p.s. Yeah, we really are friends. I call him an idiot just as often. It's how we show each other that we care.

Re:Mirroring with peer2peer networks

[krokodil]

OK, I've put one of ISO images to Gnutella:

FreeBSD-5.0-RELEASE-i386-miniinst.iso
urn:sha1: AEFB3UPCPHN4L4YVLDUOU2PBTMAS7XS3

Re:Mirroring with peer2peer networks

[jacoplane]

I think the point is that not all people who use p2p networks are necessarily hadrcore P2P pirates. Why wouldn't free software projects use p2p for distribution? It's cheaper than paying for expensive servers & bandwidth no?

Re:Mirroring with peer2peer networks

[andrewski]

Since about 2 years ago. Gnutella is chock full of goodies.

Missing features in console mode

[Anonymous Coward]

I like FreeBSD and Linux. They're absolutely great OSs both, but there's one thing I miss when I use FreeBSD. Linux has a console mode where you can have a smooth scroll. For example if you use "cat ", the text scrolls smoothly pixel by pixel not character by character. Also, I would like to customize my FreeBSD box so that when it boots, there would be a graphical logo on the left upper corner of the screen. I know FreeBSD supports splash screen at boot time but it occupies the whole screen.

MOD PARENT UP! QUICK!

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot has jumped the gun once again!

PARENT NOT A TROLL!

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid mods, parent is not a troll. RMS really is looking for a woman and that ad is real. It's in here.

PR numbers pls.

[Anonymous Coward]

but couple that with new unforeseen FreeBSD bugs

Please list the PR's to these 'bugs'

Glad i got my Download Early.

[nurb432]

Got mine yesterday.. THEN submitted a story, dont want my rates blown away by everyone on here :).

Interesting how my submission was rejected..

Re:Glad i got my Download Early.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting? Not really. There are special programs from the government to hire retarded people. This is no joke. A company hires them to do some menial fucking task, like pick staples from paper, or shred shit, or take labels off 3.5" disks. Something completely fucking mindless.

Normally, corporations don't like to hire retards. They're hard to work with, drool on shit, beat themselves about the face and neck, etc... not to mention all the hassle.

So the government, to give corporations and businesses an incentive to essentially run a day care, pays half or something of the retarded persons wages. Since they're getting minimum wage anyway, the business' out of pocket is fucking peanuts. No benefits, just slave labor.

Long story short, the obvious reason that your story was rejected is because they have a retarded 39 year old woman, sitting in her own filth, banging on a special unit with two buttons. The left one is about 9" square. It's blue with a rubberized top to keep the bile and spit from getting under the contacts. That one is 'REJECT'. The other button, about 1/4" diameter and slightly depressed from the surface is "ACCEPT". That is how the story queue is managed. It actually works rather transparently.

In what release..

[Anonymous Coward]

we have gotten rid of that devil mascot logo? I really hoped it was this release, but perhaps the next one. A major number of people refuse to use FreeBSD because of that devil logo. Devil is linked to satan, no matter how hard you try to deny it and say that FreeBSD devil is friendly daemon from Greek mythology. Too bad this major mistake happened in the first place back in the early days of FreeBSD.

I installed FreeBSD once...

[Anonymous Coward]

I read all the tutorials and so on, and I had to learn what was going on with all my partitions. I created a new primary partition for FreeBSD to install to, and selected it in that screwy partition selector bit.

It took ages to install each little package thing, and I was horrified when I restarted my computer. The primary FreeBSD partition had set itself as bootable (this was only fixed later by setting the Windows XP partition back to bootable using FreeBSD's installer again). No effort had been made at any kind of dual-booting. My computer booted, started up FreeBSD, spewed senselessness at me and then dropped me at a command prompt with no clue as to what to do next. I promptly set about removing FreeBSD.

Oh yeah !

[SILIZIUMM]

And I just downloaded the 4 ISOs of 4.7 yesterday !

But it's not a problem since many people said that it was better for me to stick with 4.7 and then switch to 5.1 or 5.2. Not a problem too since I'M on cable and I downloaded theses ISOs at 300+ kb/s :)

Re:Oh yeah !

[b0r1s]

But it's not a problem since many people said that it was better for me to stick with 4.7 and then switch to 5.1 or 5.2. Not a problem too since I'M on cable and I downloaded theses ISOs at 300+ kb/s :)

This is a valid point that I haven't yet seen addressed: which is better for the average user, 4.7 or 5.0?

There have been many, many changes to the code in 5.0, and there are bound to be more than a few bugs. If you're running a site that can have zero downtime, and you don't have redundant servers, don't bother switching to 5.0, it's simply not ready yet.

If you're a home user, don't mind a few make buildworld, make buildkernel, make installkernel, make installworld sequences, upgrade. There's enough new that you'll enjoy it, and there's enough stability that you probably won't notice the infrequent bugs.

If you're asking yourself "Why should I upgrade when everyone says there's going to be bugs?", the answer is simple: the bugs can't be found without testers, so everyone on the team needs your help to find them quickly. If you encounter a bug, file a PR, and maybe even try publicizing it on a mailing list. Letting the developers know that bugs exist is the first step in getting bug-free code.

Re:Oh yeah !

[shlong]

This question has already been addressed in the Early Adopter's Guide, which was referenced in the official release announcement.

Re:Oh yeah !

[Arandir]

4.8 will be out in a month. But don't tell Slashdot!

GOATSE LINK - MOD DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent is a hidden link to goatse.cx.

FreeBSD (mirrors) is dying!

[Anonymous Coward]

Extensive evidence from a worldwide network of users and servers indicate That FreeBSD ('s mirrors) are dying- and Slashdot killed them- with their inability to understand that even if there are some files on an FTP server does not mean that it is released- even. A survey of the FreeBSD newsgroups showed that 1100 posts were made today, all of them calling for the head of CmdrTaco. hence, we can extract from these numbers that Slashdot has fucked up again. That, coupled with Garner's latest survey of FreeBSD Release Engineering Team, finds 100% of Slashdot editors completely lacking in common sense, having graduated from the Matt Drudge "Skewl of Jurnalism". This is merely one of the sputtering spasms of in the last act of the dotcom comedy of VA Software nee VA Linux nee Andover. Leading us to believe that FreeBSD ('s mirrors) are dying. (et tu, Slashdot)?

IA64

[sinuhe]

I believe the 5.0-RELEASE that is out is for IA-64 only. IA-32 is still planning a 4.8 release next month.

Re:IA64

[moderators_are_w*nke]

Nope, 5.0 is (will be) available for i386, anytime now. 4.8 will also be available. The theory is the most conservative users won't go for 5.0 until its been around for a while, so will still want a 4.8.

Re:IA64

[Lazaru5]

You're confusing the two. 5.0-RELEASE is just a CVS tag on the -CURRENT branch. The -STABLE branch will have a 4.8 and maybe even a 4.9-RELEASE. 5.0 probably won't go -STABLE until 5.2-RELEASE. It's not IA-64 vs IA-32.

This overlapping of -RELEASEs started with 3.0

A -RELEASE from the -CURRENT branch is only meant for early adopters (and an early adopter guide is available) and [software] developers.

Re:IA64

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just glad they're supporting the AMD Tombstone 48-bit platform. That CPU set is so rare I nearly jumped out of my seat when I saw it on FreeBSD's supported processors list.

Yes, for a reason.

[nurb432]

They taste good.

Its slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew this would happen, so i uploaded it to my oc-255 server, enjoy!

Re:Its slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess this means that FreeBSD is the preferred OS for homosexuals, next to MacOS?

Link to Freshmeat

[jhines]

Open source software which is featured on a /. story should link to the Freshmeat entry for the program.

This would allow folks to find out what a program is, and then the mirror list, saving the author's homepage some the /. effect.

Re:Link to Freshmeat

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Open source software which is featured on a /. story should link to the Freshmeat entry for the program. This would allow folks to find out what a program is...

If you don't know what FreeBSD is by now, no amount of Freshmeating will help you.

This is, after all, bsd.slashdot.org.

Re:Link to Freshmeat

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

FreeBSD has their own announcement channels. If you look at Freshmeat, they're not even current anyway, they still have 4.5.

FreeBSD servers can take the load. Remember that ftp.cdrom.com was a SINGLE FreeBSD server for years, and hosted FreeBSD .isos and a couple Linux distros (I think they had slack and RedHat .isos as well). The problem is not that their wasn't a good precedure to announce this, but that procedure wasn't followed.

Sad news ... IN SOVIET RUSSIA troll found dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Police have filed a report that an Ohio resident has been found beaten and stabbed in his basement apartment. The victim was found with wounds from a curved knife of some sort and injuries consistant with a heavy blunt object.

I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

Be Kind To The Servers

[Anonymous Coward]

5.0-RELEASE-i386-miniinst.iso

Is a great ISO to get - it includes the base system and from there the rest can be downloaded as you install. This saves you bandwidth as you only have to get the programs you need, not a whole CD full of things you will never use.

You don't need the 4 ISOs

[Draco_es]

If you have a good connection you can do an HTTP/FTP/NFS install . You'll save bandwitdth and CD's. Also, you can do a decent install with just one CD.

I've installed 5.0 this morning(GMT) with no problems (it performs as fine as 4.x!). I think is stable enough for a Workstation (remember, 3 RC's behind), so I recommend you to install this version. Remember that a 4.x-5.x transition will not be easy.

Re:You don't need the 4 ISOs

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that a 4.x-5.x transition will not be easy.

Actually it will be very easy with FreeBSD. What you do is update the source, go into /usr/src, do a 'make buildworld; make buildkernel; make installkernel; make installworld' and you're done.

Seriously, that's it. I've done it and it works nicely. Unlike most Linux distributions (exception: Debian), the FreeBSD developers actually have a plan for going from release to release -- and all the software compiled for the old version will work just fine through a compatibility layer. (More verbose instructions can be found in the FreeBSD Handbook.

Re:You don't need the 4 ISOs

[more fool you]

actually you missed an important bit.

doing that will not update your /etc. you need to run mergemaster, as outlined in /usr/src/Makefile after you cvsup your sources

Re:You don't need the 4 ISOs

[b0r1s]

I've installed 5.0 this morning(GMT) with no problems (it performs as fine as 4.x!).

Rebuild world and kernel, take out the debugging and witness checks, and it's quite a bit faster. The networking code isn't quite as quick, but the kernel and vm is very, very fast.

See Releng (was:Re:Oh, hooray)

[marcovje]

See release engineering schedule on the FreeBSD web site.

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.0R/schedule.ht ml

4 days before scheduled release:

"Heads up email to hubs@FreeBSD.org to give admins time to prepare for the load spike to come. The site administrators have frequently requested advance notice for new ISOs."

mod parent down.

[FireBook]

someone mod this down fs.

He's just afraid his mom is next.

[Anonymous Coward]

Better watch out. If they are killing pigs, the next one could be your mom, wife, or girlfriend.

This is a job for BitTorrent !

[OneInEveryCrowd]

If you haven't heard already BitTorrent is a download facility that forces the downloaders to start sharing their upload bandwidth even before the download is complete.

I tested this briefly 2 weeks ago. I tried sharing a 200 meg video file (a recent anime fansub release) on my dsl at home. At one point I had thirty people downloading and some of them were reporting speeds of 40-50 kB/s even though my dsl is only 12.8 kB/s max.

Get it at:

http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/download.html

and start sharing !

If I can actually get to a mirror I may try sharing here myself.

Re:This is a job for BitTorrent !

[Profane Motherfucker]

some of them were reporting speeds of 40-50 kB/s even though my dsl is only 12.8 kB/s max.

Get it at:

Yeah, with information like that, I'd say it sounds sufuckingperbely written. Good coding job.

I thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

...*BSD is dead? Oh wait, it's just their ftp server...

Help: how to be an official freebsd mirror?

[Anonymous Coward]

i dont see any faqs on how to get into the official freebsd mirror...

i could setup some stable official mirrors in various countries with good ISPs...

can anyone answer there? whom to contact and stuff?
thanks.

And just who are you?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a full time technical employee there I can say with certainty that your post is essentially bullshit, but for the record, why not give your real name?

Early Adopter's Guide

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you want to read some thoughts on whether you should upgrade, then click to view the early adopter's guide.

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.0R/early-adopter .html

Summary:

"While FreeBSD 5.0 contains a number of new and exciting features, it may not be suitable for all users at this time. In this document, we presented some background on release engineering, some of the more notable new features of the 5.X series, and some drawbacks to early adoption. We also presented some future plans for the 4-STABLE development branch and some tips on upgrading for early adopters."

Re:NO NO NO

[Anonymous Coward]

In SOVIET RUSSIA, *BSD says YOU are dying!

Properly modded Re:*BSD is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

The original parent was a troll. A classic /. in fact. And you, of course, responded to it. This makes it a very highly sucessful troll. The only BSD that is dying is BSDI.

Re:Properly modded Re:*BSD is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

So was the post you replied to. I guess that makes you an even bigger idiot.

How to acquire BSD licenses

[Anonymous Coward]

A software product license grants you the legal right to run or access a software program. A license agreement governs your use of the licensed software program.

There are three basic steps required to purchase a software license after you have determined which software program(s) you need:

Determine the license you need.
Decide the best purchase option--perpetual vs. subscription, for example.
Determine where you should purchase.
Determining the License You Need
A software product is categorized at three different levels: product pool, product, and edition. For example, with Microsoft® Office XP Professional, the product pool is Applications, the product is Office XP, and the edition is Professional.

Product Pool. Microsoft software programs fall under one of the following three product pools:
Applications. Microsoft application software programs are used to perform functions such as word processing and spreadsheet and presentation creation. Examples of Microsoft applications include Microsoft Office, Microsoft Visio®, and Microsoft Project. Developer tools and utilities, such as Microsoft Visual Studio® are also part of the Microsoft applications pool.
Systems. Microsoft desktop operating system software programs such as Microsoft Windows® XP Professional operating system control a computer and make it possible for users to enter and run applications.
Servers. Microsoft server software programs provide a variety of functions such as database storage, e-mail, messaging, and event monitoring for workers who are part of a larger network or business unit who need to share information. Examples of servers include Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 2000, and Windows 2000 Server. For more information on purchasing Microsoft server software products, see How to Buy .NET Enterprise Servers
Product. The software program. For example, Office, Visual Studio, Windows 2000, or SQL Server.
Edition. Suggests the features included in a product.
Determining the Best Purchase Option and Purchase Point
Original Equipment Manufacturer
You may license products through an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). These products, such as Windows operating systems, come installed when you purchase a new computer.

Full Packaged Product (FPP)-Retail
Physical, shrink-wrapped boxes of licensed product that can be purchased in a local retail store or any local software retailer.

Volume Licensing for Organizations
You may enjoy potentially significant savings by acquiring multiple product licenses. Depending on the size and type of your organization, you have the following volume licensing options:

Open License 6.0. Designed for organizations purchasing as few as five licenses.
Select License 6.0. Designed for organizations that have 250 or more desktops and are able to forecast software license acquisitions over a three-year period.
Enterprise Agreement 6.0. Perhaps the best choice for organizations that have 250 or more desktops and that are looking to standardize their enterprise on one or more of the Microsoft Platform Enterprise Products (Office Professional, Windows Professional upgrade and Core Client Access License) at discounted prices based on a three-year agreement term.
Enterprise Subscription Agreement 6.0. The program for corporate customers with 250 or more desktops who prefer to license Microsoft software products on a subscription basis. Enterprise Subscription Agreement 6.0 allows your organization to standardize on one or more Microsoft Platform Enterprise Products at discounted prices based on a three-year agreement term.
Academic Volume Licensing. If your organization is an academic institution, you may qualify for one of the Microsoft academic licensing programs.

Maybe these ISOs wont work properly.

[caluml]

It would be kind of funny/ironic if the FreeBSD team deliberately put out ISOs with a fault or flaw in them, just to put off people who link to and download them before the proper release message.

Doubtful, but if they get annoyed at this, look out for it next time.

I wonder if slashdot does this on purpose to FBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems something like this happens EVERY release of FreeBSD. While once or twice might be excuseable, *every time* HAS to make one wonder if Slashdot is doing this on purpose to harm FreeBSD.

Makes me also wonder if an undocumented "feature" of Slashdot is the posting of the FreeBSD is Dying post, as well.

What's the problem? That FreeBSD is a cometitor of Linux? Is that why Slashdot pulls this stunt time and time again? What other project does Slashdot do this to AT ALL, let alone every time.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but when something is done time and time again, anyone with a brain would find the "we made a mistake, sorry" line very unbelievable as the behavior is repeated time and time again.

Maybe we'll see another posting about a troll getting sued....and it will be Slashdot getting sued by FreeBSD!

Grow up and act responsibly, please. Don't do things that are harmful to others and their hard open source work, please. Thank you (I hope).

BitTorrent Links for 5.0 release

[mxs]

Since Slashdot had to link to the FTP, maybe this will help lighten the stress on the mirrors : http://tacos.sus.mcgill.ca/~hperes/BT_BSD5.0/ has BitTorrent files for the i386 release ISOs.

BitTorrent is a peer to peer fileswarmer. It's Free and Open Source, and comes in flavors for *ix, win32, and MacOS X. Clients are avaiable @ http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/ ...

Once you have finished the download, please keep the window open as long as possible so that others can get the file as well. Thanks !

The download might be a little slow at the beginning, but as more and more people hop on, it should get really fast. Just give it a couple of minutes.

Re:BitTorrent Links for 5.0 release

[OneInEveryCrowd]

I'm already getting twice the speed from your link that I got from the ftp mirrors. Thanks.

Re:BitTorrent Links for 5.0 release

[t0qer]

Just a side note for those who already have the iso's from ftp or other sources.

If you would like to spare some bandwidth to the cause, click the torrent links on the page and save the file where your already existing iso files are. It won't overwrite the files (unless the md5 is off) Once it has completed checking the MD5 you'll go into upload mode (i'm currently uploading 8kb w00t!)

Re:BitTorrent Links for 5.0 release

[Russellkhan]

The first page you linked doesn't link to the Windows client - it links to completedir which is for serving up files only (although the dfirections it gives give the impression that it's linking to the client - if you are or know the maintainer of that page, you may want to change it/let them know).

You can get the Windows clients from here.

One command

[Anonymous Coward]

cvsup.

Though, you probably know it already.

fBSD on a laptop?

[gTsiros]

On a slightly unrelated and very selfish note...i have XP on my notebook (came with it, runs excellent. Packard Bell igo 2640, i think nec makes it) and i want to try a unixoid OS on it. Doesn't have to have a graphical shell. Any recommendations? I need to see just how long i can get the battery to last...I've heard (rumors) that linux distros aren't *that* laptop friendly.

Re:fBSD on a laptop?

[Anonymous Coward]

On another unrelated note I heard suv's weren't garage friendly so I was wondering if anyone knows where I can find a good truck.

Re:fBSD on a laptop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check your hardware list (under System in the control panel) - then check the comptability lists for FreeBSD and Linux. Install the one that fits the best. This will (most likely) be Linux, given the greater driver support, but if FreeBSD will work on your hardware I think you will find it a superior choice. I'm a FreeBSD user, but there are times when Linux is the better choice.

With the included Linux support layer, FreeBSD can run any Linux orFreeBSD binary, and is generally simpler to administer. (the ports system *ALONE* makes FreeBSD a good choice)

The most important thing is to make sure your hardware is supported, though.

Re:fBSD on a laptop?

[mrselfdestrukt]

.I've heard (rumors) that linux distros aren't *that* laptop friendly.
I'm sure it depends on your hardware, but I've got a Dell CPx P3 650 which is way over a year old. The poor thing really needs a new battery and it only lasts about 20 minutes in Windows under normal load. When I boot into Mandrake 9.0 however , it can run for at least an hour or a tad longer sometimes - under a much higher load (because I can do more). I'm just damn exited about FreeBSD5 with sparc64 support. I've just downloaded and as soon as I get the change I'm gonna try it out on a bored machine in the server room.

Re:fBSD on a laptop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like a typical Honda Civic driving, small-penis sized Linux user.

Oh, it's been announced!

[austus]

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.0R/announce.html

It just came out!!!

[edupt]

It just came out!!!
It's official :D

Re:It just came out!!!

[La Temperanza]

Wrong. If you read the CVS logs you'll see that's only a draft of the announcement.

Re:It just came out!!!

[edupt]

"It is my privilege and pleasure to announce the availability of FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE ..." This is how it starts the official email announcing it, send by freebsd-announce mailling list ... it's out!!!

UFS1 vs UFS2

[frohike]

Can someone in the know post a quick rundown on the differences between UFS1 and UFS2? I've tried searching on the web, news archives, the freebsd site, etc, and the most I can come up with is that it supports file system sizes larger than 1TB, and it has native EA support. Specifically I'm wondering if it supports files larger than 2GB now, and what sort of performance changes they've made (these are hinted at all over the place but not explicitly listed). I saw mention of an actual list of expected differences from Kirk McKusick but no link.. a link to that would probably be sufficient to answer any of these questions :)

Anyone have any experience using UFS2? Would you recommend it? I'm probably going to wait for 5.1 or 5.2-RELEASE and upgrade my media server. I'd like to have large file support for obvious reasons.

Re:UFS1 vs UFS2

[scottj]

Didn't UFS1 support files larger than 2GB?

Re:UFS1 vs UFS2

[Istealmymusic]

I'm installing 5.0 as I write this and here is what sysinstall says about UFS2: To make use of UFS2, press '2' on a UFS file system to toggle the on-disk format revision. UFS2 provides native support for extended attributes, larger disk sizes, and forward compatibility with new on-disk high performance directory layout and storage extents. However, UFS2 is unsupported on versions of FreeBSD prior to 5.0 so it is not recommended for environments requiring backward compatibility. Also, UFS2 is not currently recommended as a root file system format for non-64-bit platforms due to incrased size of the boot loader; special local configuration is required to boot UFS2 as a root file system on i386 and PC98. Looks pretty cool, I'm using UFS2 with softupdates on my /var, /tmp, and /usr filesystems.

Re:UFS1 vs UFS2

[Markus Landgren]

I have had a 40 GB file on UFS1 so I am pretty sure UFS2 can handle files larger than 2 GB.

Re:UFS1 vs UFS2

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I'm a FreeBSD developer..

UFS 1 has a 1TB limit because it uses 32 bit block pointers but uses -ve values to indicate metadata stuff. UFS2 is basically an upgrade to UFS1 with 64 bit block pointers. (amongst other things)
As of writing, this doesn't help you because the SCSI and partitionning code are still limmited to 2TB partitions (well I guess it lets you make a FS
> 1TB but 32 bits in size). 5.1 will probably have all the big device and big partition stuff more integrated.
In addition the disk concatination code is going threough a rewrite and will allow concatination to make larger than 2TB virtual devices... julian

Re:UFS1 vs UFS2

[geniusj]

You can use UFS2 as a root filesystem on 32 bit platforms. This was fixed prior to 5.0-RELEASE. I'm doing it right now in fact with RC3

Cheers,
-JD-

Re:UFS1 vs UFS2

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because Linux had that problem, the person projected Linux flaws on BSD.

Re:UFS1 vs UFS2

[pgregg]

supports files larger than 2GB now

FreeBSD has supported >2Gb files for a very long time...
... but maybe you're thinking of the Linux 2Gb limit.....

Re:UFS1 vs UFS2

[Istealmymusic]

I've noticed some documentation inconsistancies with 5.0-RELEASE. That text was taken from /stand/sysinstall of 5.0 in fact. Some manpages in 5.0 are outdated, and even a few core utilities do not work in default (in particular, truss(1) requires procfs /proc to be mounted, which it is not by default). Oh well, some rough edges are to be expected in a .0.

Re:UFS1 vs UFS2

[nsayer]

UFS1 can already handle files > 2GB. One of the big benefits of moving to UFS2 is that it is one of the requirements for moving to 64 bit time_t values, which will slay the y2037 bug.

34 years and counting... :-)

Clipping from the mailing list

[Anonymous Coward]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

It is my privilege and pleasure to announce the availability of FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE. The culmination of nearly three years of work, this
release starts FreeBSD on the path of advanced multiprocessor and application thread support and introduces support for the sparc64 and
ia64 platforms. Among the long list of new and improved features:

- UFS2, the second generation UFS filesystem, shatters the current 1TB
filesystem barrier.
- Background filesystem checking (bgfsck) and filesystem snapshots
eliminate the need for downtime to do filesystem repair and backup
tasks.
- Experimental support for Mandatory Access Controls (MAC) provide
an extensible and flexible means for administrators to define system
security policies.
- Fine-grained locking in the kernel paves the road for much higher
efficiency of multi-processor systems.
- Support for Bluetooth, ACPI, CardBus, IEEE 1394, and experimental
hardware crypto acceleration keeps FreeBSD at the forefront of new
technology.
- The GCC 3.2.1 compiler provides the latest installment of the
ever-improving GNU Compiler Collection.
- GEOM, the extensible and flexible storage framework, and DEVFS,
the device virtual filesystem, simplify storage and device
management while opening the door for new enterprise storage
technologies.
- Support for the sparc64 and ia64 platforms expands FreeBSD's
support of advanced 64-bit computing platforms.

Although FreeBSD 5.0 contains a number of new and exciting features, it may not be suitable for all users. More conservative users may prefer
to continue using FreeBSD 4.X. Information on the various trade-offs involved, as well as some notes on future plans for both FreeBSD 4.X
and 5.X, can be found in the Early Adopter's Guide, available here:

http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/5.0R/early-adopter .html

For a complete list of new features and known problems, please see the release notes and errata list, available here:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/5.0R/relnotes.html
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/5.0R/errata.html

For more information about FreeBSD release engineering activities, please see:

http://www.FreeBSD.org/releng/

Availability
- ------------

FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE supports the i386, pc98, alpha, sparc64, and
ia64 architectures and can be installed directly over the net using the
boot floppies or copied to a local NFS/FTP server. Distributions for
all architectures are available now.

Please continue to support the FreeBSD Project by purchasing media from one of our supporting vendors. The following companies will be
offering FreeBSD 5.0 based products:

FreeBSD Mall, Inc. http://www.freebsdmall.com/
Daemonnews, Inc. http://www.bsdmall.com/freebsd1.html

If you can't afford FreeBSD on media, are impatient, or just want to use it for evangelism purposes, then by all means download the ISO
images. We can't promise that all the mirror sites will carry the larger ISO images, but they will at least be available from:

ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/
ftp://ftp12.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/
ftp://ftp.tw.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/
ftp://ftp{2,3,4,5}.jp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/
ftp://ftp.cz.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/
ftp://ftp7.de.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/
ftp://ftp.lt.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/
ftp://ftp2.za.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/
ftp://ftp.se.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/
ftp://ftp{1,2,4}.ru.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/

FreeBSD is also available via anonymous FTP from mirror sites in the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada,
China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, Mitchistan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

Before trying the central FTP site, please check your regional mirror(s) first by going to:

ftp://ftp..FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD

Any additional mirror sites will be labeled ftp2, ftp3 and so on. More information about FreeBSD mirror sites can be found at:

http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books /h andbook/mirrors-ftp.ht
ml

For instructions on installing FreeBSD, please see Chapter 2 of The FreeBSD Handbook. It provides a complete installation walk-through
for users new to FreeBSD, and can be found online at:

http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books /h andbook/install.html

Acknowledgments
- ---------------

Many companies donated equipment, network access, or man-hours to finance the release engineering activities for FreeBSD 5.0 including The FreeBSD Mall, Compaq, Yahoo!, Sentex Communications, and
NTT/Verio.

The release engineering team for 5.0-RELEASE includes:

Scott Long Release Engineering and Building
Bruce A. Mah Release Engineering, Documentation
Robert Watson Release Engineering, Security
John Baldwin Release Engineering
Murray Stokely Release Engineering
Marcel Moolenaar IA64 Release Building
Takahashi Yoshihiro PC98 Release Building
Kris Kennaway Package Building
Jacques A. Vidrine Security Officer

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (FreeBSD)

iD8DBQE+KuGgHTr20QF8Xr8RAv9pAKDDxmMut+gXfcTHyD+X o/ ZIge1nTACeMTya
EYft/KuEpuSFUyhCEQAaxh8=
=3rQi
- ----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Hells Bells

[Anonymous Coward]

Satan? Devil?
Are you fucking crazy? No, you are simply, and I mean simply, IRRATIONAL - DEVOID OF REASON - SUPERSTITIOS - DANGEROUS.
I mean, really, you think the air around you is full of angels & devils fighting and that you are the battleground itself !!! - you need to see a psychiatrist. After that, go get an education.

MOD PARENT DOWN

[ChrisCampbell47]

Absolutely the only +5 comments on this thread should be people excoriating CmdrTaco for A) posting before PGP-signed announcement and B) linking directly to the master ftp site instead of the web page listing the mirrors.

I mean, I expect this from one of the junior "editors", but Cmdr Taco? Come on.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN

[Krux]

I thought it was still in beta... has been for well over a year..

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN

[Strog]

They have been doing release candidates for a little while now. You did realize that a release candidate is testing for a forthcoming release?

It is a .0 release so there will be some .0x releases to fix some things that got missed. It will take a couple .x releases to shake things out and advance the maturing process. I will have a FreeBSD 5.0 box but my primary will still be 4.7-stable until 5.0 proves itself.

Uhh.. Taco you suck.

[mindflux]

2003-01-19 04:48:49 FreeBSD 5.0 on FreeBSD ftp's, not officially annou (bsd,bsd) (rejected)
2003-01-19 05:09:15 FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE (articles,news) (rejected)

MMMKAY!

DON'T BE SUCH A MEANIE

[YOU ARE SO FIRED!]

U r teh lame

No, No, No...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's supposed to be: "Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to suscribe to your newsletter."

check mirrors please !!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

5.0 is spreading all over world at this right moment, release the strain from master server

check mirrors please !!!!!

Which one to purchase?

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to purchase FreeBSD on DVD but also with manual. Which package am I supposed to buy? Is the DVD bootable? Would it be better to buy CD's instead? I realize I could just read the online help and download the ISO, but I want to give support.

Lay off the drugs

[nurb432]

They are rotting your brain.

Troll?

[nurb432]

Seems like you need to lay off the drugs.. or get a life.

Stating reality isnt cause for being labled.

Re:Troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a life? You stupid fuck. You replied to your own post, and then told yourself to get a life. What the fuck is your deal? Are you the retarded 39 year old editing the stories? Did they let you out of the cage?

Re:Troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes

Fonts screwed up.

[Anonymous Coward]

I installed the new version of FreeBSD as a fresh install and got some problems. I also installed X and Enlightenment and IceWM from ports. The problem: Fonts are screwed up! You'll see it when you use Mozilla / Phoenix. Some fonts are ok, some are screwed up (the characters are OK, but the spaces between characters is totally weird and some fonts overlap eachother.) Anyone else had this problem?

Re:Fonts screwed up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Try:

pkg_add -r freetype2

or install it from ports

Don't download it

[Anonymous Coward]

This thing is dead.

One reason

[Anonymous Coward]

We are predators...

holy smokes, it's for real....

[painkillr]

Obviously no pics included...

http://www.stallman.org/#personal

wait there is a pic....

[painkillr]

Maybe I subconsciously didn't want to find it...

http://www.stallman.org/rms.jpg

ACPI / laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be installing this on my laptop tomorrow. It warms my heart that they support ACPI natively.

Why can't RH, Mandrake, et al offer two kernels, one with APM and the other with ACPI, in their releases?

Configuring and compiling a kernel is a pain in the ass, and they could help jump start all those with newer laptops (mine's 3 years old now -- and you still have to jump through hoops to get the minimal benefits that ACPI in *NIX land provide).

It's embarassing that Microsoft implemented ACPI over three years ago, that ACPI is hosted at Intel and it still doesn't give you that much in the world of Linux and *BSD.

Re:ACPI / laptop

[meekjt]

let me know how it works out...

bah

[syrinx]

never fails, I just burnt an install cd of 5.0-RC3 yesterday.

fortunately I hadn't gotten around to using it yet.

maybe if I burn a copy of Nethack, we'll get 3.4.1. ;)

Re:bah

[__past__]

Um, CVSup? There's absolutely no need to download new ISOs again.

Re:bah

[syrinx]

i know, i do that normally. but i'm installing on a new hard drive. was originally going to start with 5.0-rc3, but hadn't gotten around to doing that yet. so now i am starting with 5.0-release instead.

cvsup does rock though, once i get everything installed in the first place. :)

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, cvsup from -STABLE to 5.0-RELEASE if you're willing to spend an hour in mergemaster (and all the time spent recompiling every single file). Using the ISO is much faster if you just want to get the damned thing installed. cvsup does rule, however, if you're just going from one -STABLE to another (since there are many fewer differences).

Very Cool

[mnmn]

FreeBSD itself is a very unique OS, being a real UNIX, yet very free, even for commercially modified versions (unlike the GPL license). Its focus is on robustness, yet supporting a large variety of hardware, unlike Open/NetBSD. Sure NetBSD supports more architecture, but sacrifices on many other features, OpenBSD may try to be more robust but sacrifices other flexibilities.

Linux has a motherload of features, everything from Supercomputer support to watches, more hardware than FreeBSD and many other experimental crap that most OSes didnt even think about, but at that point it sacrifices stability. Sure Ive run high-availibility servers on Linux but using newer features and drivers breaks it. Linux will take its time maturing, given attention shifts to stability more than features; FreeBSD is already there.

Re:Very Cool

[andrewski]

Linux will never be as stable as FreeBSD, because the unofficial Linux development mantra is "Let's include every cool experimental thing that we can!" while the FreeBSD mantra is "Incorporate proven stable technology."

It's the result of each system having separate design goals. Which one is better depends on what you what to do.

Re:Very Cool

[mnmn]

Linux without unstable components is extremely stable. Then again we cant live without features or drivers. Theres a reason why I replaced my FreeBSD server with RedHat, just a couple of things FreeBSD didnt have despite the stability and me getting so used to it. I keep a very close eye on FreeBSD's development, but opposite of Linux, its slow on picking up features. I just have to use Linux and make sure I dont compile it with experimental stuff.

I'm a pragmatist. I go for whatever best suits my purposes, with a slight bias towards free software. In my present set of requirements (token ring + NAT + Apache+SSL+J2EE+SAMBA+Qmail), it now feels like I should head for Solaris from RedHat. To be perfect, I'll buy a Sparc machine and run solaris 9. At the end, its really the survival of the fittest for each situation among the OSes. None of them is indespensible, all need a balance of features, drivers, stability, marketing, freedom.

Re:Very Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux without unstable components is extremely stable. Then again we cant live without features or drivers.

Spoken like a true linux user! If you can't live without features, maybe you should use Windows. Unless you enjoy compliling that ACPI kernel patch. Yummy.

Re:Very Cool

[mnmn]

What is with your crowd?? I need features so I have to get lost to Windows. I need stability so I should use FreeBSD.

While a lot of middle-grounders and hardcore Linux users acknowledge FreeBSD's positive points, some FreeBSD users' distastes go to the extreme, denouncing Linux below Microsoft. This debate has been going on since around 1998 and some very vocal FreeBSD users have become the Taliban of the free software world. FreeBSD or nothing at all!

Look, theres a reason why more computers run Linux than FreeBSD and its neither the marketing nor anti-BSDism. Its pragmatism. Agreeing that FreeBSD is more stable is not giving you any ground. I'm not saying more stable by how small a margin. But youre not acknowledging the virtues of other free OSes shows how strongly biased you are.

Then again, its so hard for you to believe youre talking to a primarily FreeBSD user. Youve made it into a cult. Ive used FreeBSD on a high-traffic Internet server for over a year with a lot of things running on top of it. I continue to use it sometimes and keep an eye on its features, in case it matches my requirements AGAIN. I am a FreeBSD user too whether your vocal pack likes it or not.

Re:Very Cool

[Russellkhan]

"In my present set of requirements (token ring + NAT + Apache+SSL+J2EE+SAMBA+Qmail), it now feels like I should head for Solaris from RedHat."

It's been my understanding that Qmail and Solaris are not generally the best combination due largely to Qmail's tendency to fork often and Solaris's sluggishness with forking processes. Have you had experience that runs counter to this information?

Re:Very Cool

[mnmn]

No

How hard can this be?

[Kjella]

1. Set up formirrorsonly.freebsd.org ftp server
2. Give all mirrors a login, one ip per account (= leaked login is fairly harmless)
3. Announce a reasonable "mirroring" timeframe
4. Make mirrors run a cron job (or whatever *BSD has) at the end of the mirroring time, making it simultaniously availible on all (non-lazy) mirrors. Announce it on main website at the same time.
5. Stop whining about how everybody wrecks everything before it's ready.
6. ???
7. Benefit

Kjella

Re:How hard can this be?

[Anonymous Coward]

Moron. They do have a mirrors only FTP server. That's not the point. Linking directly to the FTP server on te front page like that only makes every moron Slashdot reader like yourself go "Oooo, link! Kjella follow hyperlink or else Saber-tooth Tiger eat Kjella!". Then, when they finally get to the end of that link they forget what they were doing and immediatly go back they way they came. How useful was that? Well, probably 1 out of 100 people that click the link actually intend on at least / seeing the changes / reading the documentation / downloading it.

We don't need spectators. Fuck you.

It really is a pleasure

[DrSkwid]

to use the manufacturers handbook as the definitive guide. Imagine that, a supplied manual that actually tells you everything you need to know.

One Handbook, One OS, One happy customer

Just installed it, so far so good

[rinsoblue]

I just downloaded the mini disk and installed FreeBSD 5.0. I also installed KDE and several other applications.

All seems to be working quite well so far.

Congratulations to the Release Team.

GEOM sounds interesting

[DrSkwid]

I hope one can run GEOM filters in userland. Sounds like a way to implement a totally soft file system.

I'll use the eponymous plan9 example of ftpfs

ftps -m /n/FreeBSD ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD

This would mount the remote ftp site into your local namespace so that when you did ls /n/FreeBSD you got the directory listing of ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD

Shell programmers will instantly see the advantage of such a system over application level ftp clients.

You can use all the tools you presently use for files for manipulating the remote filesystem. None of your applications will have to understand ftp to operate and you can write new ones without even worrying about ftp libraries or whatever difficult protocol you can envisage.

plan9 achieves all this by employing a kind of universal protocol called 9p [now 9p2000]. It's quite a simple protocol and just does not much more than read, write, walk.

It sounds like the filtering system is a way to implement virtual file systems. I do hope so.

There are many interesting applications for such a concept. The list supplied with plan9 is here

Re:GEOM sounds interesting

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

The HURD was supposed to let you do something like this. Every thing was supposed to be a 'server' which obviously would have defaults, but would be replaceable. Cool thing it was supposed to be replaceable system wide, per-user or per-process. So in theory I could mount ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub onto /net/ftp/FreeBSD or whatever, and you'd be able to browse the files like a normal mount (forgetting that ftp really isn't a protocol designed for that, but it's still cool).

RMS has found out that while replacing all these old crufty OSes, there's a reason they stay around; revolutionary stuff is just plain hard, for a variety of reasons.

Re:GEOM sounds interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately: GEOM is for layout of block devices (e.g. at the partition & sector level), not for virtual filesystems. It has no concept of directories and files.

*BSD already has a virtual filesystem layer in the kernel, but it's not accessible from userland.

JJ

Re:GEOM sounds interesting

[Bert64]

I had a similar hack for amigaos, you could mount an ftp site as if it was a regular volume,same as a cd or a floppy etc.

Read Closely

[nurb432]

Where else is one to put a comment where the issue is with the parent that has been unjustly moderated?

Replying to my own post seemed the most appropriate to get attention. As it seems it has, evidenced by your ( somewhat worthless ) comment.

Careful about throwing stones or making ludicrous assumptions. *THINK* then react.

Re:Read Closely

[Anonymous Coward]

Just admit you're an idiot and can't figure out how to work threaded discussions properly. I mean come on, we don't expect much, you probably use Linux too.

This Release Is Very Important

[Not The Real Me]

It will give all 50 users of BSD something to do for the rest of January.

WoW! Firewire support!

[Anonymous Coward]

- golly gee, you mean FreeBSD finally got support for FireWire?

- wow! FreeBSD must really be a sophisticated operating system!

- i'm just wetting my pants while waiting to get my hands on a copy!

- can i download it over my modem?

Re:WoW! Firewire support!

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, in 1997-1998 people were using firewire on FreeBSD systems

And, please, you can stop posting on /dork anytime.

Re:WoW! Firewire support!

[Anonymous Coward]

It sure did. Way back when Win98 was still in beta.

The editors bitchslapped the entire thread

[Anonymous Coward]

More mod abuse by the editors. I seriously doubt groups of people took the time to mod all of those posts "overrated".

Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is dying. Because I said so.

WHAT A RELIEF!

[Anonymous Coward]

My 19-year-old child, the Free Software Movement, occupies most of my life, leaving no room for more children

Thank God he's not going to breed!

more talk than action

[DrSkwid]

Pike, Ritchie et.al. got a usable product out of the door and crammed with innovation that the rest of the world will eventually find is The Right Thing.

Single sign on - yup & secure too
Security included by default, not as an add on like in Unix & Windows which both evolved from single user systems and the problems that brings [I mean root - how crazy!]
Totally re-entrant in all sorts of ways [get a prompt, type 'rio', and the windowing system runs inside that window - great for testing and you can even choose to transparently run it on remote CPUs]

I hope the hurd does get something out of the door.

User level file systems are a beautiful thing.

death of freebsd announced, again

[vileMuncher]

Obsolescence of the freeBSD operating system represents itself strangely. So many people don't want freeBSD that they kill half the FTP servers on the face of the planet downloading it when a new version is available. Weird. Notice: Every time a new release of any form of BSD is announced some Linuxketeer or XP drone can be depended upon to announce that '*BSD is dead!' FreeBSD looks pretty healthy considering it was first announced as dead about three years ago. To all those who feel threatened by *BSD I say relax. Competition leads to evolution.

Re:I wonder if slashdot does this on purpose to FB

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes me also wonder if an undocumented "feature" of Slashdot is the posting of the FreeBSD is Dying post, as well.

You know damn well if it was a 'Linux is a failure' series featuring SuSE's begging, Mandrake's bankruptcy, TurboLinux's turbo downturn, or VA Linux flameout, the staff would be all over it.

Why?

[ScubaS]

D00D SKr00 aLL u fAgZ WiND0Wz are The GAY u aLL sUx0r!!!!!

If it hurts, it must be good for you

[Anonymous Coward]

Journalling is a hack to an already poor filesystem. Well designed filesystems, such as UFS, support other means to ensure correctness. UFS and UFS2 support softupdates, which ensure consistency.

That would be why FreeBSD and Solaris filesystems are slower than Linux, right?

He's playing with apache

[Anonymous Coward]

nhoj@nhoj:~% telnet 130.237.77.139 22
Trying 130.237.77.139...
Connected to dumle.telge.kth.se.
Escape character is '^]'.
SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_3.4p1 Debian 1:3.4p1-1

How about the nvidia driver ?

[Anonymous Coward]

can this version use the nvidia driver?

German article "FreeBSD - The Power To Serve"

[benners]

Hi,

an article from the University of Hagen for German speaking FreeBSD newbies can be downloaded here:

Download (pdf, 45 pages)

Best Regards,

Sebastian

Karma Whores

[Guillaume Ross]

How stupid is that.. 20 people saying CmdrTaco is a dumbass for not linking to the mirror list, and they all have +5.

What a bunch of whores

PS: CmdrTaco , you should REALLY link to a mirror list blablablalba.

Huzzah!

[nsayer]

Congratulations to all of the folks who worked hard to make this happen. I stayed up way to late last night upgrading my desktop machine and ran into only a few trivialitiess that were straightforward to fix.

I suppose it could be psychosomatic, but it actually seems faster to me than 4.7-RELEASE. :-)

I have a couple of public web server type sites that I plan on leaving at 4.x for now, but I'm quite pleased with the present state of the 5.x branch.

Read Even closer

[nurb432]

Seems I DO know how to use threaded discussions, else wed not be down in the 'threads'..

I stand by the statement that it was appropriate to comment where I did, considering the subject.

I was not replying to MY post, I was responding to the moderation of said post, which didn't warrant starting a new branch. Perhaps it was a tad confusing to you, but that was the intent, now spelled out rather clearly.

And don't assume the Linux connection, I use *BSD. The fact we are in the BSD forum should have given you a clue, speaking of idiot..

Now to be honest I USED to use Linux, until the community became so fragmented that its way out of control, and about to implode.

linux

[Anonymous Coward]

red hat is fine to start, along with mandrake and suse. red hat isnt -bad-. its just after going to freebsd, things like the ports system, and the documentation make red hat [and most other linux distros] seem lacking.

*BSD is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

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 late point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

Fact: *BSD is dying

BSD: Symphony of the Night

[Anonymous Coward]

The hour is dark as Dr. Abraham von Stallman approaches the sinister
coffin deep within the mansion.

His bride, a delicate Hurd of pale vaporware wearing a heavily used
dress, whispers "Is it dead?"

Just then, the coffin creaks open, and up stands a monstrous beast
with three heads. It screams in blood-curdling rage at having no
good alternative to GCC.

Von Stallman raises his trusty General Public Cross and prepares
to battle the undead monster...

404: not wanted

[epine]

Has anyone ever considered configuring an HTTP byte server with a filter on the referrer tag for ".slashdot.org/"? With the appropriate server response, the site would appear /.ed before the first /. lamer hits it, and it would seem so normal I doubt anyone would notice. Just wondering.