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Upcoming FreeBSD 5.1 Release Schedule

Posted by michael on from the planning-ahead dept.

BSDForums writes "FreeBSD Release Engineering Team has posted the schedule for the Release of FreeBSD 5.1 late spring. FreeBSD-5 stable roadmap, announced earlier, outlines the future of FreeBSD-5 stable releases, specifically 5.1 and 5.2."

9 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. FreeBSD? I heard it was dead ... by zangdesign · · Score: 4, Funny

    Geez, how long has this story been up, and no one of any note has proclaimed FreeBSD dead?

    You guys are slacking off.

    Personally, I hope it never dies - I rather like it.

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    1. Re:FreeBSD? I heard it was dead ... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 4, Interesting
      No goatse.cx and tubgirl.com surely are alot more offensive and stir alot more people into a flamewar then the ancient bsd is deing.

      Infact to the contrary FreeBSD is growing. A couple of years ago BSD was unknown except by the slashdot crowd. Now after Linux quality is begining to go downhill that its getting more noticed. a 5x fold in applications definetly has strainged rpm and yes even apt-get. Depancy problems are still there.

      I tried FreeBSD in 99 and did not like it. It was weird and archiac and felt old. Today I love it. The ports are way cool and the bsd crowd ignored the Linux flashiness and focused on stability. Today it paid off and many ISP's in the New York area for example are switching to RedHat to FreeBSD because of the quality and out of box security.

      --
      http://saveie6.com/
  2. The TODO list... by drdink · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Since all 3 of the other comments on this story are offtopic or trolls, I'll throw in something somewhat informational about the upcoming FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE.

    First off, you can see the TODO list here. Stuff on this list is supposed to happen before release time.

    Also, remember that even though this is -RELEASE, it is not -STABLE. FreeBSD 5.1 will not be part of any stable branch. It is still considered the developmental version. Despite that, it is pretty stable. I haven't seen my machine crash in quite a while.

    --
    Beware, Nugget is watching... See?
    1. Re:The TODO list... by Icy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just to make it clear about the -RELEASE -STABLE and -CURRENT branches.

      -RELEASE is the most stable of the three. Only major problems are fixed in this branch such as security issues. This branch really does not change much at all if at all. Of the three branches, this is the one you want to use for production machines.

      -STABLE is the 2nd most stable, even though it's name confuses people. It is the development branch between releases. After a release, the -STABLE branch is opened and new features are added and new bugs are fixed. This branch will become the next -RELEASE. The changes are usually very mild but there can be problems.

      -CURRENT is where all the development for the next _major_ version is done and it is the least stable. Major changes are made and it might not compile at all for extended periods. It also takes a bit more knowhow to get things working as the docs are not always up-to-date.

      With 5.X they have decided to not create a -STABLE branch so that from my guess they can still make major changes and not get as much complaining :). Major and minor changes are still being made, and it takes a bit more knowledge and understanding to work around a major change that you are unfamiliar with.

      Just my 2 cents.

    2. Re:The TODO list... by Piquan · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is close, and better than most descriptions I've seen, but there's a few things I'd like to clarify.

      -STABLE is not opened from the -RELEASE. On a major revision (eg, the 4.x series), the tree is developed-- usually with a release or two-- and then -STABLE is brought up to a stable release. That's why, at the moment, there are 5.x releases, but -STABLE is still on the 4.x series.

      At some point-- probably 5.2-- then -STABLE will be brought up to the 5.x tree, starting at (for example) 5.2.

      -RELEASE isn't really a development branch; it's a tag. However, each release does have its security patch branch, such as 4.7-RELENG.

  3. Just great by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Informative
    Right after I downloaded and installed FreeBSD 4.8.

    FreeBSD 5 was way too flaky on my system.

    At least with the ports I can have the benefits of gcc 3.2.2 without if offically being supported. I just installed it a few hours ago and put a whole bunch of alias's in my /etc/csh.cshrc to point to the new gcc32. Symlinks scare because its hard to undo what you have done.

    Anyway I just did a whole make world in /usr/src and it compiled fine. Kde is alot faster compiled with true C++ prelinking.

    Just try doing something like this in Linux. Dependancy hell no more. Thank you BSD team.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  4. Where is etc/defaults/make.conf on FreeBSD 5? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Without a master makefile like the the 4.x series I may not upgrade.

    For some reason this file was deleted in version 5. There is a /etc/make.conf but its only a few lines long and is made for perl. No information on gcc or master ftp sites to automatically download ports in this file. I also checked /usr/local/etc with no luck as well

    I searched the web and found no information on this. To me this is essential. I am posting here as a last resort.

    Maybe I did something wrong when I installed it and yes I did chose to install the ports with make, gcc, etc. A change like this had to be documented. /etc/defaults/make.conf is a big deal and no information was found at freebsd's website so I guess its a user error.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
    1. Re:Where is etc/defaults/make.conf on FreeBSD 5? by shlong · · Score: 4, Informative

      Look in /usr/share/examples/etc/make.conf. It was moved there about a year ago. The reasoning was that it didn't actually contain defaults (like /etc/defaults/rc.conf does), but just usage examples.

      --
      Cat, the other, tastier white meat.
    2. Re:Where is etc/defaults/make.conf on FreeBSD 5? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Thanks.

      It does some like a weird place to put them because I and many others do edit make.conf to pick the fastest ftp sites and consider them default settings contary to whoever made the choice to use it. On a ports distro compiler optimizations and fastest sites is an essential and not just some example. But I guess the decsion was already made even though I think its a dumb one. Since you are a developer and have access to some of the mailing lists, you may want to mention to update the faq and the FreeBSD handbook online. It should of been in the RELEASE-NOTES under changes at least. No execuse for having the simplist things mentioned in it but forget about including make.conf. I searched everywhere and found nothing. I am doing the 5.0 install now and I am curious about other surprises I may encounter.

      Thanks again.

      Now off to configure the bash shell.....

      --
      http://saveie6.com/