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FreeBSD 4.8 RC2 / i386 Now Available

Posted by michael on from the better-than-ezra dept.

Dan writes "FreeBSD Release Engg. Team's Murray Stokely announces the availability of FreeBSD 4.8 RC2 for i386, he says that the alpha build is in progress. You can download 4.8 RC2 mini iso, install iso's, etc. from FreeBSD ftp site or from one of the mirror sites."

4 of 25 comments (clear)

  1. I'm sure there will be confusion, so... by cbiffle · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just to explain, for any who aren't familiar with the FreeBSD release process:

    FreeBSD 4.8 will be the latest release from the FreeBSD 4-STABLE branch. This could also be thought of for the time being as the -STABLE branch, as there is not yet a 5-STABLE. A lot of the goodies from 5.0 (5-CURRENT) have been merged-from-current (MFC'd) into 4.8, including Firewire and bugfixes. It's GCC2-based, and I run it on my laptop with much luck, though it lacks a lot of the ACPI goodness in 5.

    5.0 is a release from 5-CURRENT. Just as they did with 4.0 before, it is released before there is a formal -STABLE branch, which is expected to appear somewhere around 5.1 or 5.2. I use it on all my workstations, and it flies -- GCC3-based, with new kernel magic that has (at least for me) dramatically improved responsiveness.

    Which is no small feat, since my FreeBSD/KDE desktops consistently outperform my equivalent Linux machines in terms of, say, running two makes while playing a song over NFS with no skips. (These are k6-2 machines, one with FreeBSD5, one with Gentoo.)

    The 4.0 branch will continue to be developed well into the lifetime of 5, just as 3.0 was before it. (Development on 3-STABLE only recently slowed down; it benefited from most of the bugfixes in 4 that didn't break compatibility.)

    My suggestions to someone wanting to run FreeBSD right now? If it's a production machine, I'd stick to 4.7 or 4.8, simply because the ability to track the -STABLE branch with cvsup is really nice. Also, if you're not comfortable with updating your sources and recompiling your world periodically, stick to 4.x; since 5.0 doesn't yet have a controlled -STABLE branch, it will occasionally have broken features, though this has only happened to me once.
    On the other hand, if you have a recent machine, need good ACPI support, or want to see what all the fuss is about, try 5.0. I use it with great success -- just be warned, you may have to recompile things every so often until it goes -STABLE.

    Happy BSDing!

    1. Re:I'm sure there will be confusion, so... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Next time, please try something a little more modern like Linux 2.5.65

      How do you know he wasn't?

      But then I've never really cracked the Linux upgrade from source thing. My FreeBSD upgrades consist of three commands, a long wait, and a reboot - a complete non-event. Last time one of the guys in the office needed to upgrade a Linux box all the office Linux gurus had to lend a hand for 2 days.

      So perhaps your "the kernel is out of date" assumption is a valid one.

    2. Re:I'm sure there will be confusion, so... by bluGill · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Let me know when linux 2.6 kernels are out. Until then I will leave the development kernels off my main desktop. Just like I leave the development freebsd kernels off my desktop.

      Nothing wrong with keeping up to date with the latest and greatest, but it ins't tested, and if it breaks report it and someone will fix it. Run something considered stable and there is a much better chance that nothing will break. Nothing breaking is critically important when you update from the net, and your net connection is through the machine you are updateing.

  2. Re:why? by TilJ · · Score: 2, Informative

    Like NT ACL support?

    --
    "The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth." -- Bene Gesserit Precept