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FreeBSD 5.1 Review and BSD Roundup

Posted by timothy on from the large-lasso dept.

securitas writes "Both eWEEK's review of FreeBSD 5.1 and ExtremeTech's BSD overview and roundup (single page) will be of interest to BSDers and anyone else who wants to explore their open source OS options. The review of FreeBSD 5.1 says it lacks the stability of v4.8 but adds features that some may find useful (for example, more processor architectures are supported) so it shouldn't be considered for critical deployments yet. And the BSD round-up speaks for itself."

4 of 385 comments (clear)

  1. Well duh.... by Alan+Hicks · · Score: 5, Informative

    The review of FreeBSD 5.1 says it lacks the stability of v4.8

    That's why it's 5.1-CURRENT and not 5.1-STABLE. That's like saying version 2.5.60 of the linux kernel lacks the stability of version 2.4.21.

    --
    Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
  2. SMP & MT Progress by rapiere · · Score: 5, Informative

    Good objective articles despite extremetech's review is more than 8 months old now. Interested slashdot readers can look at the progress of fine grained SMP and advanced multi-threading system (KSE), two features which made me try this great operating system.

    5.1 is not in the stable branch yet, but 5.2/3 show great promises.

  3. Re:I tried it, I liked it by _narf_ · · Score: 5, Informative

    Speaking of hardware issues, VMWare doesn't like some of the ways FreeBSD performs some operations now. You need to recompile the kernel with an option to disable use of CMPXCHG to get it to run ok.

    Basically it'll just keeeep sloooowiing doooown.

    But you can fudge through the install easily enough by suspending/resuming the VM, which will bring it back to speed. You need to do it a few times mind you as it keeps slowing down. :/

    --
    Have you painted a shed today?
  4. Re:Actually... by mjmalone · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's a bit different. FreeBSD is stating outright that this is not *AS* stable as 4.8-STABLE. I'm sure it is a much more stable OS than anything MS has to offer. They are merely stating that they are still working out kinks in the software and are warning people before hand not to be surprised if an issue arises. When was the last time MS released an OS upgrade and said "well, this OS isn't as stable as the last one, but we will release some service packs in a few month and those who are running mission critical applications should wait until these are released before upgrading."

    --
    Visualize the world of wine