FreeBSD 5.1 Released

LogicX writes "FreeBSD 5.1 is now available. Mirrors and press release are at FreeBSD.org. Enjoy." Here are the release notes for this new version. Update: 06/09 18:15 GMT by S : Here's a BitTorrent link at scarywater.net, and another BitTorrent link from the original poster.

Comments

And still no Java

[kwerle]

I am so bummed. I really was looking forward to a release that included Java "out of the box."

Re:And still no Java

[Zenin]

Not that I'm against Java, but if you want Java included "out of the box" I'm afraid you understand neither FreeBSD's design or the fundamental issues of working with Java (on any platform).

Arguably Perl has a stronger basis for being in the base system, and even it was been taken out now.

Re:And still no Java

[Anonymous Coward]

You could always Switch to OS X. I hear it is a Free BSD based OS that has Java built-in.

Re:And still no Java

[dildatron]

Java is so easy to install, why don't you just install it yourself? FreeBSD is kind of a minimalist system, that you can customize how you want it. It's not a KitchenSink Distro.

Re:And still no Java

[titzandkunt]

"Not that I'm against Java, but if you want Java included "out of the box" I'm afraid you understand neither FreeBSD's design or the fundamental issues of working with Java (on any platform)."

And yet /.ers still portray *BSD'ers as elitist assholes. How the hell can this be so?

T&K.

Re:And still no Java

[dcs]

Err, no. You go through the annoying fetch/"I accept" process once, "make package" on one machine, put the resulting files in a ftp or web server, and then pkg_add from each machine.

Re:And still no Java

[kwerle]

Not that I'm against Java, but if you want Java included "out of the box" I'm afraid you understand neither FreeBSD's design or the fundamental issues of working with Java (on any platform).

Huh. Guess I'm a little slow.

But I do remember Java being announce "out of the box" for FBSD 4.5, and not being delivered.

Oh, and I know that Java ships on linux, Solaris, and OSX.

What are the problems with "FreeBSD's design or the fundamental issues of working with Java?"

Arguably Perl has a stronger basis for being in the base system, and even it was been taken out now.

Don't much care for that either, but at least there is a reason I can follow: what version of perl with which options do you want? There are a lot of 'em...

But there are only a few Java's(tm) that are worth mentioning: 1.1, 1.2.x, 1.3.x, 1.4.x. I'm willing to pass on 1.1. And I'm willing to ask for the latest and greatest by default.

Re:And still no Java

[tigga]

I believe they wanted to take Perl out because it was simpler to manage via the ports.

The main problem was fact that full Perl was quite bloated. Any 'limited' Perl install was then not official Perl... And yes, it was not easily manageable.

Re:And still no Java

[Zenin]

Don't much care for that either, but at least there is a reason I can follow: what version of perl with which options do you want? There are a lot of 'em...

Well, the real reasons were other then this for most really. Almost no one needs non-default perl build options (I was one of those that did, but I'm a "freak" as described by my friends). Perl has a very clean dynamic loader system as well as sane package versioning. In contrast, Java has no package versioning whatsoever and AFAIK no plans to add it, sadly. I'm thinking of something at least equal to Perl's:

use My::Class 2.3; # Compile time error if My::Class isn't version 2.3 or better.

Ditto:
use 5.006; # I need Perl v5.006 or better

Simple, but highly effective. In the Java world to maintain any sanity I must keep a copy of each 3rd party package jar per application, even if they are all "identical". Nevermind the Java world rarely even puts version numbers in their .jar file names.

But there are only a few Java's(tm) that are worth mentioning: 1.1, 1.2.x, 1.3.x, 1.4.x. I'm willing to pass on 1.1. And I'm willing to ask for the latest and greatest by default.

Java tends to have pretty serious issues wrt jre/lib versioning (worse still that the Java world collectively doesn't give a damn). I could rant for ages about the broken "deprecation" design and such, but in short if you are running anything critical (basically, anything) on Java you'd do yourself a huge favor and install a JRE per-application as well as any/all 3rd party packages, completely ignoring whatever may or may not be installed in the base system. I say this from the perspective of a professional SCM; Java has one of the most unstable and problematic runtimes ever created. I personally wouldn't really care if Java was in the "base" system or not. Most of what I manage is on Solaris as it is now and we ignore /bin/java completely as well for our WebLogic servers. It wouldn't be any different on FreeBSD. At least with Perl on FreeBSD the only reason I ever built my own was to enable debugging options; All apps could reliably be said to run on the base install.

Maybe one day Java code will be able to do:

import java 1.4.1.03; // Must be Java 1.4.1 / 03 or better
import com.whatever.* 3.4;
import com.something.Barney 2.9;

But I'm not going to hold my breath.

Re:And still no Java

[Zenin]

Another, similar option but which removes the problems of high-use NFS links, is to use one "build/test" machine and use it to target installs via NFS to the /usr/local of your "client" machines.

If you have a huge number of machines to update, it's pretty simple to script such port upgrades either using "make install LOCALBASE=/mnt/nfs_other_usr_local", or pkg_add, or rsync. Portupgrade might likely have some tricks as well, haven't tried it myself yet. The point is, there are a dozen ways to handle mass-installs/upgrades cleanly and reliably. I would not however, recommend live network (NFS or whatever) /usr/local for a large install base for any OS, be it FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, Windows, whatever. Diskspace is a hell of a lot cheaper/faster then running a fast enough network to deal with a single app install network mount not to mention the lovely "single point of failure" issues also associated.

Re:And still no Java

[merdark]

And yet /.ers still portray *BSD'ers as elitist assholes. How the hell can this be so?

And yet another linux fan gets moderated to funny making fun of another community! Wow! I am so surprised!

Oops, I forgot to swear in my post. Now I'll never be moderated as funny. Darn.

Re:And still no Java

[TheRaven64]

The guy could have said something about the BSD design philosophy, summarised the problems of Java on BSD or any platform, but no, "you just don't understand". Dismissive and elitist.

Allow me to (try to) redeem my fellow FreeBSD users in your eyes. The reason Java is not included in the base install is that the base install is intended to be just that; a minimal set of closely linked packages that are required to make the system work. This includes the kernel, a shell, things like ls, rm etc and a few other bits of userspace. Everything else is (or should be) in the ports / packages collection.

It is perfectly possible to run a system run a happy system without Java. In fact, I am firmly of the opinion that Java should never be compiled. Java source code (when well written) can be crystal clear to read and beautifully structured, however it has a tendency to be painfully slow when run, detracting from the attraction of the language - a problem easily solved by removing the compiler, and leaving users to gaze in awe at the code (no one actually uses software do they? Oh, they do? Hmmm. Never mind).

This minimalist philosophy allows for a very clean userspace (ever installed 5GB of Linux and then wondered if you can delete some of it?) and enables the external packages to be maintained externally of the development of the official releases. It also allows you to do a complete install of the system from

A few notes about the FreeBSD package management system:

FreeBSD allows you to install programs from source (ports) or binary (packages). The terms 'port' and 'package' are often used interchangably, and either is used as a generic term for both, which can be confusing. The two systems are very similat, and can be mixed (I install more or less everything from ports, but installed the binary package of OpenOffice, since I didn't want to wait 2 days before using it...). In fact, you can build the binary packages from the ports, if you so choose. The ports collection is basically a hierarchy of directorys containing Makefiles, which contain instructions about where to fetch the source from, how to modify it to work on FreeBSD (if required) and how to install it. The cvsup utililty can be used to keep your copy of the ports collection up to date, and an example cvsup file is provided for this purpose. I run cvsup in a cron job, which keeps me synchronised. The previous poster stated that you could install perl by doing

cd /usr/ports/perl5
make install

but this seems like effort to me. If you install the portupgrade package (which can be done as part of the system installation, or through the ports collection) then all you would have to do would be type

portinstall perl

and it will give you a list of ports with the name perl (I think this is perl 5.6.1 and perl 5.8 at the moment, but I tend to avoid perl like the plague, so I'm not sure) from which you can select the ones you want.

The Java saga is a little longer, however. Sun have very strange license agreements for distribution of Java, which basically means that you have to download the source code yourself from sun, and then run the installer, which applies FreeBSD-specific patches to it and installs. Hopefully this will be sorted out soon.

Are all FreeBSD users elitist assholes? This cartoon (drawn, I must add by someone who has never met me) would indicate so in my case... I can't speak for the rest of the community, because I have had little contact with them. I am informed that they are more likely to tell you to RTFM than Linux people, but in my experience this is bacause you are far more likely to find the answer in FreeBSD documentation (there is a lot. No, really a lot. It's also very well written and concise) that you are with Linux. If you don't believe me read the handbook, which contains the answer to every question I've ever had about FreeBSD (which I now use as my main workstation and am far more comfortable with than Linux, despite less exposure).

What?! Did Slashdot get it right?

[Anonymous Coward]

And not announce the release early thereby crushing the servers as in previous releases?

Re:What?! Did Slashdot get it right?

[LogicX]

Actually if you go to the link off my name in the post
I setup a Bittorrent server with links to the ISO Image before the FTP permissions were released.
If anyone cares to try out bittorrent for this one -- go for it!

you might be laughing now

[andy666]

but if SCO wins we might all be using BSD!

Re:you might be laughing now

[quigonn]

SCO won't win. SCO is dying (no joke; at least in Old Europe).

Re:you might be laughing now

[dcs]

No, no, no, no!!! You got it all wrong! It's *FreeBSD* who is dieing!

Sheesh, can't people get even trolls right these days?

You seem to have missed the update

[Anonymous Coward]

It is official; Netcraft now confirms: *BSD is growing

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Windows community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has risen yet again, now up to more than 30 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has gained more market share , this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is sending other OSes into complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by topping the charts in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Daemon to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a long and prosperous future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Windows Server because *BSD is growing. Things are looking very good for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to gain market share. Red ink flows from Redmond like a river of blood.

FreeBSD is the most loved of them all, having gained 93% more core developers. The sudden and pleasant release of the long developed 5.0 only serves to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is growing.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 70000 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 70000/5 = 14000 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 7000 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (70000+14000+7000)*4 = 364000 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

Due to the release of OSX, cool new technologies and so on, FreeBSD is expanding into more desktops than ever. FreeBSD has become more than the sum of its parts.

All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily gained in market share. *BSD is very powerful and its long term survival prospects are very bright. If Windows is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to improve. The progress achieved is nothing short of a miracle. For all practical purposes, *BSD is alive and kicking.

Fact: *BSD will kick your ass

It's a great time. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

. . .to get a subscription to one or more of the BSD's at www.bsdmall.com.

Particularly in the face of 5.x being ready for production, and OpenBSD losing DARPA funding.

Re:Sweeeeeet!

[Palshife]

Does it run lunix?

I don't know what lunix is, but it does run Linux.

relnotes are ./ed

[Anonymous Coward]

The release notes for FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE contain a summary of recent changes made to the FreeBSD base system on the 5-CURRENT development branch. This document lists applicable security advisories that were issued since the last release, as well as significant changes to the FreeBSD kernel and userland. Some brief remarks on upgrading are also presented.

Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 What's New
2.1 Security Advisories
2.2 Kernel Changes
2.2.1 Processor/Motherboard Support
2.2.2 Boot Loader Changes
2.2.3 Network Interface Support
2.2.4 Network Protocols
2.2.5 Disks and Storage
2.2.6 File Systems
2.2.7 PCCARD Support
2.2.8 Multimedia Support
2.3 Userland Changes
2.4 Contributed Software
2.5 Ports/Packages Collection Infrastructure
2.6 Release Engineering and Integration
2.7 Documentation
3 Upgrading from previous releases of FreeBSD

1 Introduction
This document contains the release notes for FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE on the i386 hardware platform. It describes recently added, changed, or deleted features of FreeBSD. It also provides some notes on upgrading from previous versions of FreeBSD.

This distribution of FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE is a release distribution. It can be found at ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/ or any of its mirrors. More information on obtaining this (or other) release distributions of FreeBSD can be found in the ``Obtaining FreeBSD'' appendix to the FreeBSD Handbook.

Users who are new to the 5-CURRENT series of FreeBSD releases should also read the ``Early Adopters Guide to FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE''. This document can generally be found in the same location as the release notes (either as a part of a FreeBSD distribution or on the FreeBSD Web site). It contains important information regarding the advantages and disadvantages of using FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE, as opposed to releases based on the FreeBSD 4-STABLE development branch.

All users are encouraged to consult the release errata before installing FreeBSD. The errata document is updated with ``late-breaking'' information discovered late in the release cycle or after the release. Typically, it contains information on known bugs, security advisories, and corrections to documentation. An up-to-date copy of the errata for FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE can be found on the FreeBSD Web site.

2 What's New
This section describes many of the user-visible new or changed features in FreeBSD since 5.0-RELEASE. It includes items that are unique to the 5-CURRENT branch, as well as some features that may have been recently merged to other branches (after FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE). The latter items are marked as [MERGED].

Typical release note items document recent security advisories issued after 5.0-RELEASE, new drivers or hardware support, new commands or options, major bug fixes, or contributed software upgrades. They may also list changes to major ports/packages or release engineering practices. Clearly the release notes cannot list every single change made to FreeBSD between releases; this document focuses primarily on security advisories, user-visible changes, and major architectural improvements.

2.1 Security Advisories
A remotely exploitable vulnerability in CVS has been corrected with the import of version 1.11.5. More details can be found in security advisory FreeBSD-SA-03:01. [MERGED]

A timing-based attack on OpenSSL, which could allow a very powerful attacker access to plaintext under certain circumstances, has been prevented via an upgrade to OpenSSL 0.9.7. See security advisory FreeBSD-SA-03:02 for more details. [MERGED]

The security and performance of the ``syncookies'' feature has been improved to decrease the chance of an attacker being able to spoof connections. More details are given in security advisory FreeBSD-SA-03:03. [MERGED]

Remotely-exploitable buffer overflow vulnerabilities in sendmail have been fixed by updating sendmail. For more details, see security advisory FreeBSD-SA-03:04 and FreeBSD-SA-03:07. [MERGED]

A bounds-

Alan Eldridge

[noackjr]

This release is in memory of Alan Eldridge.

Re:Alan Eldridge

[dracvl]

This post to the FreeBSD ports list. Five days later, he is dead. Tragic.

Rest in peace, Alan. I know I appreciated your work, and so did a lot of other people.

Re:Alan Eldridge

[BlueShades]

The parent post only got a score of 4? Sheesh... I think Alan deserves his own story. What do you need a hot-shot (Bill, Steve, Linus, Richard) to pass away to get noticed. Bad /.

R.I.P Alan

Re:Alan Eldridge

[essdodson]

You have earned my greatest contempt. People like you are the reason horrible things like this happen.

Wow... 5.1 already?

[Sheetrock]

I've tried out FreeBSD a few times, having heard a great deal about its middle-of-the-road approach to things (freest license, OK server, workable desktop), and thought it was alright but in a lot of ways it seemed to be cursed in the same way as all BSDs in assuming it knew better than I did how I wanted my own system to run.

Ports worked out well until they broke during an upgrade. Switching terminals was just plain wierd, coming from the more logical Linux perspective, and I only had four of them (five with X-Windows when I could get it running.) I suspect I would have had a better time of it if I had gone scavenger hunting for that magical bit of hardware that wasn't too old or too new to work, but in the end I figured screw it -- just about any distribution of Linux seemed to install properly and run efficiently, so why torture myself?

So basically I've been running with Gentoo for the last couple of years. Has FreeBSD gotten any friendlier lately?

Re:Wow... 5.1 already?

[jandrese]

4 VTYs out of the box? You must have used FreeBSD during the early 3.x cycle. The installer is pretty much the same, but a lot of the support stuff is better now. FreeBSD still defaults to a fairly conservative interface, without excess services or many userland apps to install. The ports tree is even better now, with the advent of portupgrade and other sophisticated port tracking mechanisms. It still blows RPMs out of the water (at least compared to RH9's RPM system). There are options to install a desktop (Gnome or KDE) from the installer, which makes the whole experiance a bit more Linux-like.

Honestly, if you're happy with your current OS, there's not a lot of reason to bother switching. The differences are mostly minor, even if they are in FreeBSD's favor. Linux still has better hardware support, but it's mostly in oddball hardware that only has vendor-supplied binary only driver support in Linux.

Re:Wow... 5.1 already?

[Zenin]

Ports worked out well until they broke during an upgrade.

Install /usr/ports/sysutils/portupgrade, it makes managing ports much easier/cleaner/more reliable. Pretty much impossible to screw up installs using it, and even if you screw up installs when not using it (don't upgrade depends and sibling ports of those depends), portupgrade can fix them. The learning curve is pretty much nill as well. AFAIK it's only not part of the "base" system because it, like cvsup and other "must have" utilites, is written in Yet Another Funky Language that would also need to be added to the base.

Switching terminals was just plain wierd,

Er, virtual terminals? Alt-F#, just like Linux AFAIK? From XFree86 it's the same Ctrl-Alt-F# as Linux as well.

coming from the more logical Linux perspective, and I only had four of them (five with X-Windows when I could get it running.)

So you're bitching that FreeBSD has more enabled by default then Linux? (FreeBSD IIRC has 8 by default). Is this even an argument? Comment ones you don't want out of /etc/ttys if you really care that much (maybe the same for Linux, but honestly one of my major Linux complaints is that I can't ever find a "basic" Unix config where it's "expected" and it's likely different per distro anyway).

I suspect I would have had a better time of it if I had gone scavenger hunting for that magical bit of hardware that wasn't too old or too new to work, but in the end I figured screw it -- just about any distribution of Linux seemed to install properly and run efficiently, so why torture myself?

Hmm...if anything, FreeBSD tends to be leaps and bounds more compatiable on older hardware then Linux. "Bleeding edge" and "junk" hardware is another story, however. The FreeBSD world historically hasn't wasted too many brain cycles on making Joe's Fly By Night $5 eModem play nice, as it's mostly targeted at "power users" (server and workstation) that don't buy hardware based on what's available this week from Fry's for FREE (w/mail in rebate).

That said, FreeBSD's hardware support is within a percentage point or two of Linux (sometimes sooner, such as FreeBSD getting USB support ages before Linux did), and what is supported is often supported better.

So basically I've been running with Gentoo for the last couple of years. Has FreeBSD gotten any friendlier lately?

Depends. For a Unix system, FreeBSD has pretty much always been "friendlier" then most/all Linux distros. For a Windows desktop conversion/political statement system, stick to Linux. FreeBSD has Wine support and such, but it's really more of an afterthought and so far as politics go...M$ tends to like FreeBSD (witness Mono on FreeBSD).

In the end it's really a question of being an "anti" person or a "pro" person.

Linux: Anti-Microsoft
FreeBSD: Pro-Unix

Personally I want/need a Better Unix and I've got no problems keeping a Win2k box on tap to play games, deal with .doc files, run my AIW-TiVo, etc. If someone finds a way to make EQ, PlanetSide, Unreal II, etc run on FreeBSD that's great for someone, but myself and the vast majority of FreeBSD users won't really care; We'll still use our Windows boxes. In the Linux community however, it often seems like if the lastest game or whatever doesn't have Linux support (at the Windows level or better to boot), then it's some kind of personal afront to the entire Linux world.

Seriously, whatever. If/when I ever publish desktop software (games, whatever) it's highly unlikely I'll ever bother with a FreeBSD version, much less a Linux version. If I'd publish for a non-Windows system it would be OS X ages before Linux...and I don't even own an OS X system.

They better get careful...

[aTMsA]

announcing themselves so much, else SCO could give a look to their code, and find it strickingly similar to their own...

FreeBSD in Surround Sound

[Anonymous Coward]

5.1 speaker support has been lacking from FreeBSD for years. I'm very excited this added this feature, since I can now using my speaker set-up to the fullest.

/. should provide bittorrent trackers...

[Ron Harwood]

...whenever they announce the release of free software distributions (or large applications).

That would be a nice value added service.

Re:/. should provide bittorrent trackers...

[sporty]

Note: you typically install/upgrade freebsd via either

1. cvs (cvsup). It only gets the newer files.
2. The tarball packages. (i.e. bin.aa.gz or something like that)

ISO's don't usually get made every waking moment. It's more FBSD culture to use cvs..., so bittorrent wouldn't excel here, unless someone tarballed the distrib..

BIT TORRENT!

[Anonymous Coward]

HERE

Re:Virtual machine

[fmaxwell]

Which virtual machine/emulator is best for running BSD5 on a Linux host on x86?

FreeBSD runs in native mode on an x86. There is no need for a VM or emulator. Just install it on a drive partition and it boots and runs.

What's your goal here? Trying to slow down FreeBSD so that it doesn't make your Linux OS look bad?

hehe, FreeBSD didn't get SCO's letter?

[akiaki007]

And if they didn't, I suspect that they will have one mailed to them today... ;)

This is either troll, or a pseudotroll

[dmelomed]

You can read wscons documentation, then edit the config file, reboot and you have more virtual terminals. You obviously didn't read the docs, or you're just trolling.

FreeBSD 5.1 vs 4.x

[ikewillis]

If you are interested in the respective merits of FreeBSD 5.1 over 4.x and are unsure which one to install, you might want to see the Early Adopter's Guide for FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE

Re:NETCRAFT NOW CONFIRMS: *BSD IS DYING!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Then someone should tell netcraft. . .

they're running it.

The site www.netcraft.com is running Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) mod_perl/1.27 on FreeBSD.

and take a look at the uptime list.

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html

there's one linux box and 49 *bsd boxes.

BSD isn't dead???

[Anonymous Coward]

...what???? AAAaaaaauuugggghhhhhhh .... !!

*runs screaming from slashdot*

Re:What a pointless announcement,

[NecroMancer]

I work at a place where we use Linux and FreeBSD servers, and I can tell you that sometimes we forget the BSD servers ever exist... It is so much more stable than Linux for *real* network servers! Of course I use Linux, just because the hardware support is much better, but if I can have a choice and FreeBSD has all I need for a particular use, I go with FreeBSD.
And don't forget: if it weren't for BSD, we would not be having this discussion!

Unfortunately...

[mckeever]

It's too bad, but I won't be able to use this release for the projects I've had on the go (closed source - sorry) that run off of FreeBSD.

For some reason, the bktr driver used for TV tuner card and some other hardware hangs seconds after activiation on FreeBSD 5.x. I'll likely have to rewrite the driver anyway at some stage to fix some issues I have with it, but this is preventing me from upgrading past FreeBSD 4.8.

The efforts required to get Darwin running for at least one of these projects is starting to look like less and less of a pain. Time will tell...

Re:Unfortunately...

[nutznboltz]

Read the Fine Early Adoptor's Manual.

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.1R/early-adopter .html

Section 4 - Drawbacks to Early Adoption.

Along with the new features of FreeBSD 5.1 come some areas that can cause problems, or at least can lead to unexpected behavior. Generally, these come from the fact that a number of features are
works-in-progress. A partial list of these areas of difficulty includes:

• A number of features are not yet finished. Examples from the
  feature list above include SMPng and KSE. While suitable for testing
  and experimentation, these features may not be ready for production
  use.
• Because of changes in kernel data structures and ABIs/APIs,
  third-party binary device drivers will require modifications to work
  correctly under FreeBSD 5.1. There is a possibility of more minor
  ABI/API changes before the 5-STABLE branch is created.
• Several parts of FreeBSD's base system functionality have been
  moved to the Ports Collection. Notable examples include Perl,
  UUCP, and most (but not all) games. While these programs are
  still supported, their removal from the base system may cause some
  confusion.
• Some parts of the FreeBSD base system have fallen into a state of
  disrepair due to a lack of users and maintainers. These have been
  removed. Specific examples include the generation of a.out-style
  executables, XNS networking support, and the X-10 controller
  driver.
• A number of ports and packages do not build or do not run
  correctly under FreeBSD 5.0, whereas they did under FreeBSD
  4-STABLE. Generally these problems are caused by compiler toolchain
  changes or cleanups of header files.
• Many FreeBSD 5.1 features are seeing wide exposure for the first
  time. Many of these features (such as SMPng) have broad impacts on
  the kernel.
• A certain amount of debugging and diagnostic code is still in
  place to help track down problems in FreeBSD 5.1's new features. This
  may cause FreeBSD 5.1 to perform more slowly than 4-STABLE.
• Features are only added to the 4-STABLE development branch after
  a ``settling time'' in -CURRENT. FreeBSD 5.1 does not have the
  stabilizing influence of a -STABLE branch. (It is likely that the
  5-STABLE development branch will be created sometime after
  5.2-RELEASE.)
• Documentation (such as the FreeBSD Handbook and FAQ) may not reflect changes recently made to
  FreeBSD 5.1.

Because a number of these drawbacks affect system stability, the release engineering team recommends that more conservative sites and users stick to releases based on the 4-STABLE branch until the 5.X series is more polished.

FreeBSD & Embedded Devices

[Teckla]

I've always wondered why embedded device makers choose Linux over FreeBSD. Does anyone know why?

I'm curious because using Linux (which is GPL'd) seems a bit risky. It seems every other week some poor embedded device company is being tarred and feathered for allegedly breaking the terms of the GPL.

Why do companies run the risk of Linux/GPL license problems when FreeBSD is available? This is not a troll, I am genuinely curious.

-Teckla

Re:FreeBSD & Embedded Devices

[ctid]

It seems every other week some poor embedded device company is being tarred and feathered for allegedly breaking the terms of the GPL.

But there's no risk really. Any professional organization will read the licences of any copyrighted material they want to use in their products. If there's a problem with what a professional organization wishes to do with GPLed material, they will decide not to use it and look elsewhere. That is their choice.

A company that gets into trouble for using GPLed software without releasing the source is not "poor" in the sense of deserving sympathy.

Re:FreeBSD & Embedded Devices

[Teckla]

You're ignoring the possibility that companies will be accused (in the court of public opinion) of violating the GPL when, in fact, it hasn't been violated.

Did you read the recent Slashdot story regarding Linksys and Linux/GPL?

Overall it seems safer for a company to take the safe road and choose FreeBSD for their embedded devices. I can only imagine there is a technical reason embedded device companies choose Linux/GPL over FreeBSD/BSD, a reason so overwhelming that they're willing to risk accusations of violating the GPL (whether they are justified accusations or not).

-Teckla

Re:FreeBSD & Embedded Devices

[stienman]

This one's easy, so I'll answer it.

Companies don't have to announce that they use freebsd in their embedded devices. All they need to include is the following statement somewhere in their documentation:

Copyright 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.


That's it. Since it looks like a fairly standard copyright and is fairly small (compared to nearly any other common license today) then it's easy to miss.

There are devices out there that use BSD derivatives for their firmware, and often it is used for precisely the reasons you give.

-Adam

Re:FreeBSD & Embedded Devices

[supaflah]

Actually NetBSD(wasabi) is capitalising on the fact that they are GPL-free.

A quote from their website.
NetBSD is free of the GPL. Its BSD license is the most flexible, business-friendly license available. Users may change the kernel or add drivers while keeping the changes entirely secret. With NetBSD, OEM's IP is secure and protected. /end of quote

It's that classic battle of GPL vs BSD licensing. There are now, today, more people running BSD,if you consider Darwin(osX,etc) BSD.the core sure is,but the mac os addon is not free...
What will win in the end (abstract as the "end" be)? licensing that protects/supports the interests the developer(GPL)or the consumer (BSD)? So far, surprising as it may sound, BSD is leading in user base, but GNU/Linux is far ahead with the developers(more applications made "for Linux").

Re:Distro problem

[LizardKing]

whouldn't FBSD have a better chance of wide adoption if there was at least one other distro that was based on efficiency rather than politics?

Perl wasn't removed from the base system for political reasons, but for technical ones. Keeping the included Perl in sync with the official releases was a pain in the arse, and few things if anythiing depended on it. Frankly, there is already a good scripting tool in FreeBSD, and that's the Bourne shell.

Chris

Re:What a pointless announcement,

[fmaxwell]

How can the linux hardware support be so much better when freebsd is more stable?

Linux supports more varied hardware but FreeBSD crashes less. What's so complicated about that?

Windows 98 supports more hardware than Linux, so it must be more stable, right?

Re:And still perl is a port now and java builds

[Zeio]

Man, does anyone who criticizes FreeBSD ever use it? Because I use it and like it quite a bit, and everyone I know who uses it likes it.

On Perl: Perl is not in the base install, it's a port installed by default, So What! It was moved to ports because people want to have a lot of flexibility when it comes to what version of perl they run. The FreeBSD team was doing just what the users wanted. And I would like to know how to install FreeBSD without that Perl port installed. You would have to go out of your way in every install method to take it out. Big deal it moved from /usr/bin to /usr/local/bin (they even put symlinks for you in /usr/bin) So as far as I can tell, FreeBSD 5.1 comes with perl 5.6.1 in the "default install." The only ramification is simply this. If you for some reason want to upgrade perl, you use ports and you don't have to wait for the FreeBSD team to update it, because rightly so, they see no reason to do it. Also note that why would you want perl scripts in an OS? Shell is perfectly adequate for the scripting needs of the base system, perl is something users use.

On Java: Sun is being an idiot with regards to Sun on anything but Solaris, Windows and Linux. They make it very hard to include the JVM in binary form in a "default install." They have a ridiculous license on they source code that makes it hard for FreeBSD to do much of anything about this. By they way, if you use ports the JVM 1.4 builds nicely and works rather well. I have personally written to Sun complaining about this - as have others, but they aren't willing to focus on FreeBSD. BTW, FreeBSD runs linux binaries and the Linux JVM works on that compatibility layer.

NVIDIA: Nvidia builds binary drivers for FreeBSD. Hardly 'niche.'

SMP, scheduler: SMP is vastly improved, scheduler and VM is very very good. This OS is very competitive with Linux, and despite what you may have heard, it is capable of outperforming it without sacrificing quality.

Matched c-library, GCC, userland and kernel: One must appreciate that the FreeBSD team is a very thorough. They are obsessively concerned with coherency and quality. This is not some slapped together random miasma in every incarnation, this is a well thought out combination of the vital system components. It works. Trust me, it works. If you want military grade, use 4.8+, if you want rock solid, use 5.1. Frankly, where FreeBSD-current is, is where most linuxes start in terms stability/coherency/usability. It is quite useable in its "unstable" form.

Polling Support: One of FreeBSD's best features is polling on networking devices to prevent interrupt driven livelock.

Proof in Pudding: Think of heavy iron appliances with various free operating systems in it. I can think of two for FreeBSD. The godly Juniper routers and the F5 BigIP. These are serious pieces of networking equipment and they chose FreeBSD for a reason - its far more pleasant to deal with commercially, its fast stable and coherent and the license permits modifications without divulging them to the world.

One project, one c compiler, one c library, one coherent userland, 5 different architectures, great portability, stability and commercial viability.

logistics

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason Perl was taken out was because of logistics: it's 54MB of source that's a moving target. Very hard to keep backward compatibility.

And backward compatibility is very important to FBSD: you can still run 2.x and 3.x binaries on a 5.x box. You can still run a.out binaries on a 5.x box.

If you want Perl, you can easily install it yourself by doing a: cd /usr/ports/lang/perl{5,5.8} && make install. You're done. (Or install a pre-compiled package.)

I fail to see the issue here.

Re:No floppy drive :-(

[AKAImBatman]

I realize this is probably a joke, but bootable ISOs have been available for FreeBSD since the dawn of CDROM time. The text that you are referring to is back from the days of floppy disks being more common than CDROM drives. Ah yes, back then we did FTP installs of BSD and we liked it. And for some reason we dragged our PCs uphill through a blizzard. Don't ask me why, because I haven't the foggist. ;)

Sure wish...

[msimm]

One of the Linux distros (cough, Mandrake) would cop the subscription system. FreeBSD is right on with this method, the price is reasonable, its a great cause and satisfying as hell to receive the disks as your reading about the new release.

Paying $60/$120/$600 up front is a little steep (at least for some of us) but paying $25 per release (or something similar) is a very nice approach.

Re:No wonder you post anonymously.

[ctid]

If Linksys had built their routers around BSD, they wouldn't be facing a legal mess that might force them to give away their source code.

I think you meant to say, "if Linksys had taken the trouble to read the licence of the code they wanted to use, they wouldn't be facing a legal mess...".

The GPL doesn't force them to give away their code. They chose to use software which has a licence which requires them to make their code available if it is linked to the GPLed material. The key thing is the choice that they made. One of the provisions of the GPL is that the Licence itself should be provided with the software, so that someone who wishes to use the SW will not be in any doubt about their obligations. They had the Licence; if they ignored it, that was their choice and any problems they have now are their fault.

None of this is to doubt the quality of FreeBSD, and nor would I want to criticize people who want to distribute their software under a BSD-ish licence. It's up to the copyright-holder - anyone who wants to use the copyright-holder's material has to abide by the licence they chose. It's very simple really.

amd64 support

[edhall]

The release notes mention that an experimental amd64 release is available, but don't mention that it can be downloaded from here, including ISO images.

Most of the credit for its rapid development goes to Peter Wemm, who nearly single-handedly took the X86-64 architecture from "it can't even mount the root filesystem or exec init" to a nearly-polished release in little more than a month. (And, no, it wasn't just a matter of copying what NetBSD did; the processor-specific parts of FreeBSD and NetBSD are quite different.)

-Ed

Re:No floppy drive :-(

[SirSlud]

If you can boot via CDROM, you dont need a floppy.

Re:BunDirty

[AKAImBatman]

"man wipe"
"wipe not found"

No, I don't think you're funny. NEXT!

YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE. CEASE AND DESIST

[oliphaunt]

Dear Free Software Zealot,

WE the undersigned have reason to believe that the software referred to as *BSD contains source code ("Code") that is the Intellectual Property ("Stuff") of the SCO Group, Inc. Or maybe the SCO Group Stuff contains Code that is the property of *BSD, we're not really sure. But we want your money, either way.

Please stop using *BSD until our lawyers are able to send you an invoice for the Code you are using. If it is easier for you, you can just mail us a check in advance and we'll subtract it from your balance.

Best regards,

D. Boies
Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe
Attorneys for the SCO Group, Inc

FreeBSD 5 + A7V8X = kaboom

[chrysalis]

Unfortunately, once the system has been installed, I can't boot it. The kernel always crashes during the bootup phase on my ASUS A7V8X motherboard :(

Maybe it has something to do with USB2 and my CD burner (Plextor S88TU). I had similar crashes with NetBSD and old Linux kernels.

Re:Distro problem

[TheBracket]

I think you misunderstand the reasoning behind removing Perl from the base system (as well as not including Java, Python, etc.). You gain nothing but bloat and insecurity from having features you don't want/need installed on a server!

You are never far away from an up-to-date, zoomy version of your langauge of choice - simply go to the ports tree, and make install clean (or install a package, in most non-Java cases; Java admittedly requires an additional fetch/I Agree step because of Sun's licensing requirements, but it is easy - and you can make package for additional machines), but many users do not want/need these languages. Additionally, portupgrade makes it easy to update your packages without needing to update the base system.

Re:No floppy drive :-(

[Sean Riordan]

That doesn't keep you from doing a CD based install. Or even making a bootable CD to do a NFS or FTP install.

Re:Distro problem

[The Creator]

Can't it be on the distro without being installed when someone wants a minimal install?

ftp2 traffic

[semanticgap]

... is always fun to whatch when a new big release comes out.

Features and bloat.

[MrHanky]

I currently use FreeBSD 4.8 on my old laptop, a 133 MHz Pentium Classic with 40 MB RAM. It's mainly a typewriter and ScummVM box, and FreeBSD 4.x is very nice, fast, and lightweight for the hardware (compared to Debian and Slack). But I love features as much as the next geek, so I'd like to know how 5.x compares to 4.x with regards to consumption of my precious RAM and disk space.

And I'd also like to know if there are any special features to drool for. Come on, just convince me to upgrade. I know I want to. :-)

Re:No floppy drive :-(

[sander]

Umm... The iso images are bootable - so just download it, burn a cd, pop it into the drive and boot from it. Problem solved.

Re: JOKE - YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE. CEASE AND DESIST

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

I know this was a joke, but some people may think this is true. FreeBSD (and Net and OpenBSD) are indemnified against UNIX claims from SCO or anyone else. They've already gone through their hell (daemon mascot pun intended) and came out legally unscathed, though pushed back in mindshare that they still haven't recovered from.

D. Boies
Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe
No Mr. Howard, Mr. Fine, Mr. Howard?

Re:What a pointless announcement,

[tigga]

How can the linux hardware support be so much better when freebsd is more stable?

Because in more code you have more bugs? ;)

I have actually seen "hardware support" in Linux which was a major headache to force to work. Linux guys are just being too optimistic - if it looks like works - than it works! If it blows out later -it's a pilot error than ;)

Re:Distro problem

[Nugget]

1. FreeBSD is not a "distro" it is an "operating system"
2. You've just described exactly how it does work

Re:Distro problem

[dcs]

sh(1) is Bourne shell. We call it "Bourne" shell because it was originally written by Steve Bourne. As it was originally named simply "sh", when distinguishing between sh(1) and the other shell (csh(1)) was necessary, one referred to sh(1) as being "Bourne Shell". Things got complicated with Korn Shell, then Bourne Again Shell, etc, etc.

FreeBSD's sh(1) is compatible with the original Bourne shell, but has many features of korn shell. It is not a ksh because it doesn't have the features that make ksh _incompatible_ with sh(1).

Alas, with POSIX standard to guide one by, these days, maybe we are not actually 100% compatible with the original bourne shell, but...

If you doubt me, just google it.

Re:Distro problem

[jsprat]

Here is the relevant line from adduser.conf:

defaultshellpref = ('csh', 'sh', 'bash', 'tcsh', 'ksh', 'no', 'date')

The default shell is csh.

Re:Alan Eldridge -- Call a friend

[dinotrac]

This very sad news should remind us that many very good people have been hurt in the last few years by the IT implosion.

Sometimes nothing we do can make a difference. Sometimes the tiniest gesture can save a life.

Please remember to say "Hi, how are you?" to someone who might need it.

Re:No floppy drive :-(

[Arandir]

It said you needed floppies, not a floppy drive, can't you read! You boot from the CDROM then juggle the floppies while you install. It would be too hard to juggle three floppies, so FreeBSD makes it easy for newbies by only requiring two.

Seriously, if you read the instructions carefully, including the commas, you'll see that the floppies for are installing over anonymous FTP or NFS. You could still boot from the CDROM in such a case, but if you have a CDROM then you don't need to install from a network.

Re: JOKE - YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE. CEASE AND DESIST

[Tenebrious1]

I know this was a joke, but some people may think this is true. FreeBSD (and Net and OpenBSD) are indemnified against UNIX claims from SCO or anyone else. They've already gone through their hell (daemon mascot pun intended) and came out legally unscathed, though pushed back in mindshare that they still haven't recovered from.

And this will stop SCO from sending cease & desist letters or filing lawsuits? You don't know much about the legal system, do you? They can send as many letters as they want, until someone files a restraining order against them. They can file any lawsuit they want, it doesn't matter if it has no merit if they're expecting it never to go to trial. That's exactly what the RIAA did with the RPI student. If you threaten enough you might just make some money in the process. As long as you don't let the case get to court and be thrown out...

Re:What a pointless announcement,

[Centinel]

grow some sack and quit posting AC

Re:Distro problem

[bovinewasteproduct]

That is one of the real nice things about the ports system. When they are installing it, they just tell the installer to add perl to the mix. (you can also add other stuff to auto installed also). After install you just run use.perl port and it's just like it was in the base system.

I'm the one that added perl to the 2.X to start with and I have no problems with that extra 20 seconds it takes to add perl to the port install segment...:)

BWP

5.1 release directory not readable until release

[Michael Wardle]

After the problems that occurred when the last release was announced early, the FreeBSD release team created a new permissions scheme so that only mirror admins could access the 5.1 release directory before the official release. If anybody else tried to access the 5.1 release directory (even on a mirror site), they would get a 403 (access denied) error.

In this case, clearly it was of little use for Slashdot to announce the availability of FreeBSD 5.1 early.

great way to see latest GNOME and KDE as intended

[Michael Wardle]

As the release notes state, FreeBSD 5.1 includes the latest stable releases of GNOME and KDE, 2.2.1 and 3.1.2 respectively.

Getting FreeBSD 5.1 would be a great way to easily get the latest stable versions of these desktop environments as they were intended to be (without all the distribution-specific customizations made by Red Hat, SuSE, and so on).

Granted, you could also use Gentoo current or Debian unstable, but FreeBSD 5.1 is likely to be more stable (in the sense of not frequently changing) and you can get it on CD.

Re:Someone should write up

[kirkjobsluder]

This is an good request. Briefly:

Package philosophy

Most linux distributions seem to be leaning towards a complete desktop in a box approach. The BSDs lean more towards a minimal unix with everything else helpfully provided by packages and ports. (For example, bash is not installed by default, but adding it is trivial.)

Install

I found the default FreeBSD install to be a bit tricky. (Partly because I ran out of disk space and had to start again from scratch.) The FreeBSD install assumes that you know a bit about Unix and can read the instructions carefully. I'm told that Linux is an easier install.

Speed and power

YMMV. FreeBSD allegedly can take higher network loads. But, MySQL historically has not run as well under FreeBSD. (I've also ran into problems with threaded apache2.) Some anecdotal reports claim snappier desktop performance under FreeBSD.

Hardware support

Linux is ahead on new hardware. NetBSD runs on more platforms.

Community

Linux has a wider community. I've found support from FreeBSD groups to be pretty good.

My personal opinion is that I went with FreeBSD because of the better security record. With the exception of some minor glitches getting apache2 to run, I've been happy with it.

Re:Someone should write up

[Quill_28]

Funny, I used Linux off and on for a couple of years.

I then switched to FreeBSD and I thought the install was so much easier and ports was so much easier I never went back, and never plan to.

Not saying folks should switch just that I much prefer freebsd over the lini I have tried. I just found it to be much easier in almost everyway.

Re:Now playing catchup with Linux

[TheRaven64]

Sorry, it is bullshit. FreeBSD is for people who want their work to be done. Linux is often used by "kewl dude" crowd.

This is just plain not true. I use FreeBSD and I have no intention of getting any work done...

grub and UFS2

[azaze1]

I made the mistake of replacing the MBR that freebsd installs with that of grub from my gentoo install and realized after that it looks like grub 0.93 from gentoo cannot read or mount the UFS2 filesystem from my 5.1-RELEASE install. How can I fix this/boot back into freebsd now? And does anyone know if installing grub from freebsd's ports will support UFS2? Or am I just going to have to reinstall fbsd with UFS1. -Robert

Re:grub and UFS2

[ffsnjb]

You can use sysinstall to load the mbr without trashing the disk with a newfs. Boot from a CDROM built with the ISO from the release installed on the machine.

SCHED_ULE

[Groganz]

Just tried out the new SCHED_ULE scheduler and so far it is awesome on my SMP machine. XFree86 uses half the CPU it used to and it was very smooth running other apps whilst rebuilding the kernel with -j6, eg. FXTV.

What i like about *BSD and dont like

[felix9x]

I been using NetBSD on my laptop and on some servers lately and its so fat satisfied all my expectations except a few exception.

The port/package system is great and it works perfectly 99% of the time. The 1% of the time it does not work is because the package is not up to date or the build fails for some reason or the package conflicts with another package. When this happens there is no automatic fix you have to usualy modify the Makefile yourself or email the maintener and wait for fixes to be made.

What i also love and cant live without in package system is that it installs things in expected places and sets up and postinstallation steps specific to the OS that need to be done that otherwise would have to be done in a time consuming maner by hand.

What i dont like about the ports/package system is that its not intuative when custom modification need to be made. Its pretty much automatic as far as installing what is offered by the package but if one needs special config options or special needs then there is no uniform config file to modify and you never know where in the Makefile the change you need can be baried.

I cant speak for FreeBSD since i have not used it but i am sure alot of the general things apply to them also.

Let me give an expample in Netbsd where packages dont live up to their expectation and that is when dealing with packages with intall systems that dont fit the standard open source build system. NetBSD is not to blame here but the companies who release this software.
Example 1. OpenOffice.
First there is only Linux Binaries because the source can not realy be build for the new version of OpenOffice. Ok this is not a huge problem since Linux emulation is pretty easy to set up. What realy upset me is that since i didnt have the /proc filesystem the OpenOffice crashed without explanation. There was only one way to determine what caused the crash and that is to do trace of the program. Why would i not have /proc filesystem because i like the simple philosopy of BSD that if its not needed dont put it there.

Example 2.
Sun Java SDK
This is another broken and annoying thing to install. First you need to download binaries yourself. Then you have to also enable Linux Emulation. Then you can install but it will be unstable for some reason. Version 1.3 runs stables but Version 1.4 causes strange lockups. Again this is Sun to blame for not making it easy to adopt their software to BSD.

Overall the install systems is clean. It seems that Gentoo linux has developed a install system similar to this and i hope to explore it.

Next thing that i love about Netbsd is its clean rc.d system. Basicaly not runlevel nonesence and very uniform implementation of all the start scrips. The package software also provides an start scrip.

Last thing i love about NetBSD is that its inovative. Yes maybe not at a frantic pace like Linux or a faced pace FreeBSD but its not sitting around idly either. New exciting features to come in next version like scheduler activations.

Ok i had enough to say for now.

Bought the CD

[bigjnsa500]

I bought the CD yesterday at USENIX (being held in my home town of San Antonio) for $5 at the Houston users group table. I hope this release is better than the 4.7 I have on my Dell laptop now.

Has NVIDIA released 5.x drivers yet?