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

Go for the servers!

[Blaine Hilton]

I'm glad to hear (again) that the freeBSD team is concentrating on the server segment and not on desktops, which IMHO is better suited for Linux.

Go calculate something

Don't they know?

[Ed Avis]

Talk about 'last words'!

This Has Gotta Be a First

[Homebrewed]

What a surprise-- a well-written, usefull, and interesting article by Eugenia. Have pigs indeed spouted wings?

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.)

Re:good analysis

[ih8apple]

Here's the slashdot discussion of the afore-mentioned article.

Re:BSD?

[Frater 219]

What are the advantages of FreeBSD over Windows 2003 Server. Both are stable OSs, capable of running a high traffic server. But, with Windows, you get the award-winning support of a Fortune 500 company. With BSD, you get nothing.

With BSD, or most any other Unix system including Linux distributions, you get a time-tested and proven base upon which all the system's services rest. You get a well-understood system upon which hundreds of thousands of people have built upon, and millions of people have hands-on experience using. You get not only an operating system, but a thoroughly proven model for maintainability, ease of administration, and security.

Windows 2003 Server is a new and unproven offering from a company whose past successes in marketing have been dwarfed in the public eye by the harms due to their failings (see, e.g., Nimda, SQL Sapphire Worm). Nobody has years or even months of experience on Windows 2003 Server, and its frequently accurate technical documentation cannot match the depth of understanding which Unix professionals bring with their platform.

You could choose Windows 2003 Server, and your staff might be able to make it work for you. But what will you do in two years? BSD, Linux, and the rest of the Unix heritage will still be going strong -- but if history is any guide to the future, Microsoft will be running ads touting Windows 2005 Server, a new and equally unproven platform, and telling you that 2003 Server is a piece of unstable trash. What kind of a future is that for your business?

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.

Re:Getting started with FreeBSD

[rutledjw]

First off:

I agree that - FreeBSD is a great OS, if you get to know it.

I'm pushing it as a solution for our corporate web machines (DMZ level stuff). My company has made some good progress there. Six months ago, I was told in no uncertian terms by my boss "I never want to hear the 'L' word again. We'll pay big $$$ per Windows server and that's it." Asshole, he's going the way of the Tandy now...

Here's my issue. Java support in BSD is spotty. I know the knee-jerk reaction is "And we care why?" but that's not appropriate. Server-side Java is very important for web-services and web-apps. Reading the article, it looks like they're working on it and ran out of money. My opinion is that until you get more native support from IBM (WebSphere), BEA (WebLogic) and some SDK developers (Sun, IBM, whomever) BSD isn't even an option.

If this support was better, BSD would be a legitimate candidate for application-level boxes (instead of just web-level running apache) running the real guts of the apps & services. As it is...

Re:Getting started with FreeBSD

[Billly Gates]

Java is quite stable. Its just not kosher meaining not certified. BSD users do not care as Linux users generally over such things since commercial support is alot more limited in the bsd world.

For a decade FreeBSD has beaten the crap out of linux in almost every catagory untill smp and journaling filesystems during the last 2 years. THe reason why Linux is gaining momentium is because of things like certified java, distro's paying hardware makers to write drivers, and commerical apps.

BSD hackers have elitism karma about them. For example read gregs comments in the interview about java and a journaling filesystem. They are very conservative and elitism. They need to think outside the box and focus on things like java for good reason. Another thing that might hurt FreeBSD is lack of hotswappable hardware support. Unix is still king in this area. Linux is about to take over during the next kernel release. More drivers for this are deffinetly needed.

Its a different culture in bussiness then in hackerdom. Linux hackers at least figured this out back in the late 90's and made strides to fit in with bussinesses. Distro's really made the difference since they were bussiness oriented and acted as a liason to corporations. BSDI is the company to thank for java actually. Without them going to sun, FreeBSD would of had no java support at all.

But the good part is FreeBSD is probably the most stable operating system out there due to its conservate development model. You can't have both ways.

Re:Getting started with FreeBSD

[Billly Gates]

"With the advent of background FSCK in FreeBSD 5, nobody really has much reason to even want journaling"

Thats the problem.

I have not done system administration for a couple of years but non journaled raid volumes take hours and not seconds to do FSCK. NT4 and Novel servers with close to a terrbyte of data before journaling came around took 4 to 6 hours to reboot after a crash. That costs tens of thousands of dollars in lost time. About a years salary for some of the IT workers.

I have also seen FSCK unable to repair damaged ext2 filesystems after they became corrupted. Its not perfect and its only a last resort after shit really hits the fan.

Were not talking about your home pc but a real enterprise environment. If the BSD developers want to move into this area they need to implement some of these features that Unix and Linux have. I can not convince my boss to use FreeBSD at work until it has this feature. Evem though FreeBSD is more stable then Linux. Also I do not get the argument of stability with journaling filesystems? Ever reliable os on the planet now has one without problems. It can not be that bad. All I know is in case of a power outage I absolutely need to have the disk working in seconds upon reboot without data corruption.

You trade off performance for reliablity with soft updates. It seems soft updates are trying to implement some of the features of raw i/o which FreeBSD is lacking in that Linux and Unix have as well. Its conservative is making if fall behind even though it does guarantee its stability.

soft-updates!= journaling.

Is is just me...

[BaldingByMicrosoft]

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

What? No legal threats?

[death to hanzosan]

"Finally, the FreeBSD core team has not been contacted by SCO representives directly."

What? No pompous, threatening letters from SCO group? I've always thought that "BSD is dying" was just a huge troll, but if you're not even noteworthy enough to get unjustly harassed by SCO group, you're doing something wrong!

Why not use OpenBSD?

[use_compress]

Please excuse my ignorance, but why would I choose FreeBSD over OpenBSD? OpenBSD is more stable and secure. Why take the extreme step of using a *BSD distro if you're not goning to with the most secure one. If you value ease of use, why not go with some advanced flavor of Linux or even *GASP* the latest version of Win2K Server.

Re:Why not use OpenBSD?

[jamezilla]

From the extremetech article on the differences between the various BSDs:

"FreeBSD has the largest development team, the largest user base, the largest number of ported applications, and the largest collection of active e-mail lists. It also has the best documentation..."

It also points out that installation is easier. In short, you use FreeBSD because it has the richest feature set and greatest ease-of-use. You use OpenBSD when security is your first priority and you don't mind struggling a little bit.

Re:BSD

[Devil Ducky]

Where BSD needs to copy Linux is in the packaging systems. First, you need so many different ways to package a program that half of every development team is devoted just to making all the variations. Then, you need a dumb public who only recognizes one of those systems, as a hint here they should choose the one with the worst dependency techniques of the group. Once this is complete a group of people who are completly unreleated to any section of the development of BSD have to get together to make a BSD-SB. This group should continue the tradition of choosing the worst variants of how things are done and make them the new standard. Finally a small group of hard core BSDers need to get together to create a new distirbution which will not be BSD-SB compliant, but will be based on a cool idea for software distribution that they saw implemented in Gentoo. Then the circle of popular unix clones will be complete.

Note to the people with no sense of humor: don't read this comment.

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!

porting FreeBSD to Java?

[ceswiedler]

They're porting FreeBSD to Java? Wow, that's impressive. What OS do they run the JVM on?

There's a quote...

[devphil]

I wish I could find this webpage again. (Google's not responding and I'm too busy to wait.) Anyhow, some guy had a great quote which IMHO accurately summed things up as far as free operating systems go. Went something like (in random order)

FreeBSD is the most powerful OS.
NetBSD is the most portable OS.
OpenBSD is the most secure OS.
Linux is the most popular OS.

Re:BSD?

[Frater 219]

I've had the discussion with a BSD-zealot friend of mine whether Linux or BSD is better, and all we could come up with is that both are much better than Windows:)

Not for everything. Windows beats Unix if you want to run Photoshop. :) I was talking specifically about server systems, where reliability and understandability of the system is crucial. I think the Unix edge is not merely the Unix architecture, but also the history and deep understanding which Unix professionals bring. It just isn't possible for a culture to have that kind of deep understanding of a system that has just been released -- no matter how featureful it may be.

To be snarky about it: On Unix systems, novices know they have no idea what is going on, and experts know that they know what is going on. On Windows systems, novices think they know what is going on, and experts know that they do not know what is going on. That may make Windows experts more Socratic ("Socrates is wisest, because he knows that he knows nothing") -- but I would not want my enterprise database dependent upon Socrates.

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:No java? I'm outta here

[Ded Bob]

... huge make install nightmare.

Huh?

Steps for native JAVA on FreeBSD:
1) cd /usr/ports/java/jdk13.
2) Execute make.
3) Download patch file from URL make provided into /usr/ports/distfiles.
4) Execute make.
5) Download source from URL make provided into /usr/ports/distfiles.
6) Execute 'make install'.

It is a little troublesome but still quite easy.

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.

The Glory of SunOS lives on

[YetAnotherName]

Back when I used to be called the Sun God (SunOS sysadmin 1989-1993), BSD/386 hadn't yet split, and Linux was in its infancy. A few years later, it was about time I get Unix onto my various Intel systems.

The question was, Linux or FreeBSD?

Today, the answer is a resounding both (FreeBSD runs perimeter firewall and fileservers, Linux runs my desktops), but back then, FreeBSD was the obvious answer.

Why? Because it was the most like good old SunOS 4.1 you could get on an Intel chip. That's a good thing? Fuck yeah! Before Sun abandoned beloved Berkeley Unix for the nightmare that was, is, and will forever be System-V, they had an OS on a platform of choice. Not just choice, but prime (and I don't mean Pr1me, either, god help us).

SunOS gave us a shockingly stable platform on the Motorola 68030 and SPARC chips. It provided some of the most stable TCP/IP around at the time. C-News (remember C-news?) rocked on it. C-News didn't have a prayer an the new-fangled AIX that we got to evaluate.

Graphics? Fuck yes. I/O bandwidth? Fuck yes. xbattle at 1am after closing the terminal room? Fuck yes.

And even then, it had lightweight processes, secure RPC, a super-clean dev interface, and other experimental features that we take for granted today.

Solaris arrived shortly on the seen, I changed jobs, and SunOS is just a memory for most of us grizzled Sun Gods now. But you can still see a lot of SunOS in FreeBSD. I even remember when the -a option appeared in ifconfig on SunOS. It appeared in FreeBSD very shortly, too.

Linux is dying

[1g$man]

Linux sucks far worse than BSD.

Just ask Google:

BSD sucks 28,400 results.
Linux sucks 228,000 results.

It is quite clear that the users have spoken: Linux Sucks! Long Live BSD!