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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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: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...