Interview With The FreeBSD Core Team

Gentu writes "OSNews features an ultra interesting and in-depth interview with three members of FreeBSD's Core team (Wes Peters, Greg Lehey and M. Warner Losh) and also a major FreeBSD developer (Scott Long). They discuss issues from the Java port to corporate backing, the Linux competition, the 5.x branch and how it stacks up against the other Unices, UFS2, the possible XFree86 fork, SCO and its Unix IP situation, even... re-unification of the BSDs."

Comments

good analysis

[ih8apple]

Here's a good analysis of the various BSDs from last september. It gives a great background on the BSDs and it'll help explain why the BSDs should be re-united (or not.)

Getting started with FreeBSD

[johnkp]

FreeBSD is a great OS, if you get to know it. There's a lot of documentation available, and I thought I'd just share with you my experiences with FreeBSD.

Which version to install.
4.x or 5.0? 4.x is the stable series and 5.x is in development. It suffers of what's been called a chicken and egg problem described here. Think of 5.x as Linux 2.5 series. 5.1 when released(scheduled for release in june)to will be the start of the new stable branch. If you want stability choose 4.x. Bleeding edge? 5.0.

You can download the ISO's from here:

You generally only need to download the first ISO

Installation:
The installer is text based, but dont let it scare you off. The partition layout is a little different than what you may be used to but it's all described in the FreeBSD handbook here

The installation will leave you off with a pretty basic system and you're ready to install:

Ports
Ports is a very powerfull way of installing new programs and manage installed programs. You almost never run into dependency hell. A very powerfull tool to help manage ports is portupgrade. A short introduction is available here and to ports in general here

Documentation.
FreeBSD requires some time to get to know but the FreeBSD Handbook, provides a great introduction to FreeBSD. Sites also worth a visit is Freshports.org to keep you updated about new ports, and BSD dev center

If you give FreeBSD an honest try it will pay off. Most of the applications avalible for Linux also compiles on FreeBSD, and in general I find it more easy to find documentation, thus making it more easy to maintain.

Is is just me...

[BaldingByMicrosoft]

...or, in reading through this, does Greg 'groggy' Lehey come off as a bit of a prick?

Re:No java? I'm outta here

[CoolVibe]

Huh?

tiamat:/home/coolvibe> /usr/local/jdk1.3.1/bin/java -version
java version "1.3.1-p8"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.3.1-p8-coolvibe-030409-00:57)
Classic VM (build 1.3.1-p8-coolvibe-030409-00:57, green threads, nojit)

What the HELL are you talking about?

Heck, even jdk1.4 is in the ports, and even native!

Re:Why not use OpenBSD?

[Ewan]

Because OpenBSD still doesnt support SMP does it? Which makes it useful only for small machines.

Re:Why not use OpenBSD?

[Baki]

OpenBSD is more of a niche product concentrating 100% on security, at the cost of being somewhat archaic and sacrificing efficiency at times. Also it has much less ported software. It was split off of NetBSD which has many platforms to run on as its 'specialism'.

FreeBSD OTOH has always targeted major platforms (i386 and alpha), also is secure but doesn't have the single focus just on that as OpenBSD, but is much more suitable as a general purpose (server or desktop) operating system.

Unless you have a very dedicated network related application such as a firewall, I'd recommend FreeBSD over OpenBSD.

All on one page (printer-friendly version)

[Thing 1]

For those of you with slow connections or who just hate clicking 10 times to read a story, here's the interview all on one page.

Enjoy!

Perhaps... but Greg 'groggy' is a great fella

[ClarkEvans]

does Greg 'groggy' Lehey come off as a bit of a prick?

I've had many interactions with groggy, and he has been nothing but very professional and helpful.

Re:Why not use OpenBSD?

[dolmant_php]

FreeBSD has many things that OpenBSD does not: good Mozilla support, OpenOffice, Java that works well, SMP, more ports, etc. Same goes in the other direction. Both have their fortes.

Re:Why not use OpenBSD?

[zulux]

Please excuse my ignorance, but why would I choose FreeBSD over OpenBSD?

I use both - they both have their place. I tend to put OpenBSD on internet facing tasks(Apache, SMTP, DNS) , and FreeBSD on internal facing tasks (NFS, Samba, PostgrQL).

The largest benifit of FreeBSD over OpenBSD is that they have the resouces to keep older versions well patched - you can pop FreeBSD on a server and know that you'll have about three years of patches waiting for you in the future. OpenBSD stops official support for instalations older than a year or so.

Re:About Debian's FreeBSD based system.

[OA]

For status of Debian's netBSD/FreeBSD based system:

netBSD port status

netBSD port status

Answer to 2 specific questions:

• [quote]Is it a joint project by FreeBSD and Debian teams?[/quote]

  I do not know exactly, ... but it looks like soley by Debian Developer developing user land software using only netBSD kernel.

• [quote]The Debian is basing their efforts on the already established ports of various applications on *BSD. eg. see the following from Debian's NetBSD based distribuition's information pages.[/quote]

  I do not think this is true.

  From Why Debian GNU/NetBSD?:

  Why Debian GNU/NetBSD?

  • NetBSD runs on hardware unsupported by Linux. Porting Debian to the NetBSD kernel increases the number of platforms that can run a Debian-based operating system.
  • The Debian GNU/Hurd project demonstrates that Debian is not tied to one specific kernel. However, the Hurd kernel is still relatively immature - a Debian GNU/NetBSD system would be usable at a production level.
  • Lessons learned from the porting of Debian to NetBSD can be used in porting Debian to other kernels (such as FreeBSD and OpenBSD).
  • In contrast to projects like Fink or Debian GNU/w32, Debian GNU/NetBSD does not exist in order to provide extra software or a Unix-style environment to an existing OS (the *BSD ports trees are already comprehensive, and they unarguably provide a Unix-style environment). Instead, a user or administrator used to a more traditional Debian system should feel comfortable with a Debian GNU/NetBSD system immediately and competent in a relatively short period of time.
  • Not everybody likes the *BSD ports tree or the *BSD userland (this is a personal preference thing, rather than any sort of comment on quality). Linux distributions have been produced which provide *BSD style ports or a *BSD style userland for those who like the BSD user environment but also wish to use the Linux kernel - Debian GNU/NetBSD is the logical reverse of this, allowing people who like the GNU userland or a Linux-style packaging system to use the NetBSD kernel.
  • Because we can.

Re:No java? I'm outta here

[mi]

Once the sources are downloaded -- and it is Sun's stupidity, that requires you to click-through the license before downloading, it is as simple as:

cd /usr/ports/java/jdk13
make
su
make install
exit

To install on multiple machines, you can follow up with

make package

After which, it only a matter of

pkg_add jdk-1.3.....tgz

on each of your systems...

BTW, I'm using the 1.4.1 -- it is certainly quite stable.