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FreeBSD 5.1 Review and BSD Roundup
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."
A lot more polish than the 5.0 release.
Also a lot more of the new stuff on by default.
Have you painted a shed today?
One might well be justified in calling BSD the "Mr. Chips" of operating systems. In the final scene of the classic movie "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", a doctor remarks that it is a shame that the title character -- a masterful schoolteacher now on his death bed -- has never had children. Referring to the many youngsters whose lives he had helped to shape, Mr. Chips replies that he has indeed had children... thousands of them.
;)
I'm not sure I get the analogy, but I *think* he just said *BSD is dying.
My journal has hot
I've been able to do this in the past with a a few Fortune 500 companies by implementing a strict B2C affinity marketing plan which relies heavily on E-mediation performance metrics, something that not everyone is willing to go through.
In short, don't even come to me with questions about your Value chain collaborative commerce unless you're willing to pay the piper and upgrade to FreeBSD because this is not your daddy's economy and you'll get nowhere by running legacy operating systems. Times have changed and unless you're willing to change with them you'll be left behind wondering what the hell happened to all your profits.
Warmest regards,
--Jack
Wagner LLC Consulting Co. - Getting it right the first time
Isn't this what has been said about Windows for quite some time?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Give me a break. Somebody gets paid for doing that kind of work, and a title like "Senior Analyst"?
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?
Part of the reason why Linux is in a better market position than FreeBSD is the range of hardware supported by Linux. For instance FreeBSD supports only two ATM cards and no Tokenring cards, while people have done fancy things using Linux with both networks.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
I started reading the article, and found the summation of why I prefer BSD.
Plant a tree in a developing country.
the article is way too pro-BSD to be said, and is comparing apple (linux, kernel sense) with oranges (BSD, distribution-sense).
Though being a BSD-user (OpenBSD server & MacOSX desktop), I feel uneasy to read all those, esp. the 'linux-copy-bsd' phrase.
Sorry, but YFI. From the FreeBSD docs:
One detail that the lawsuit did clarify is the naming: in the 1980s, BSD was known as ``BSD UNIX''. With the elimination of the last vestige of AT&T code from BSD, it also lost the right to the name UNIX. Thus you will see references in book titles to ``the 4.3BSD UNIX operating system'' and ``the 4.4BSD operating system''.
So what is really the difference between, say, Debian Linux and FreeBSD? For the average user, the difference is surprisingly small: Both are UNIX-like operating systems. (Emphasis mine.)
-uso.
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
"The review of FreeBSD 5.1 says it lacks the stability of v4.8"
A BSD lacking stability? *universe explodes*
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
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.
So bottom line is, I really liked a lot of BSD's features, but unfortunately an OS without programs is useless. The ports guys do a great job, but can't make up for lack of vendor support. ;(
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Dude, first off, that's an old machine.
Second, it's pretty well known the old finders were not multitasking. Or at least, not preemptive. I always wondered about formatting a floppy, copying a file while trying to do something as well. But a lot of people I've seen use Macs are happy doing one thing at a time.
Others have claimed Macs were/are superior because they tend to just work. For a long time they came with sound on board, networking, video, Scsi, and in GUI usability terms were far ahead of Windows pre-95.
Granted, Apple has a monopoly on their OS and hardware, but there's a reason for that; they believe that the whole computer should be package, not a bunch of parts. I was not much of a Mac fan until I bought my first Titanium Powerbook. After that, my Mac has replaced my Linux and Win desktops. I still love Linux and Intel hardware, but there is something to be said about plug and play that works - even for geeks.
So yah, you're right, you're using a shitty browser on a old slow Mac. But why does it have to get to the point of calling people fanatics all the time. I'm sure all the Windoze, BSD, etc.., people speak highly of Linux zealots complaining about any OS that doesn't have skinnable everything and doesn't run on the shittiest hardware invented.
I'd still buy a Mac for my parents in a hearbeat even though they 'like' Windoze. That said, my mom runs a online store off a Gentoo box I built her, so..
Oops! It looks like IBM and Redhat were just charities after all...
But seriously, does this stink of someone that's lapped up the FUD to anyone else?
Ah, Slashdot, land of the ad hominem and home of the trollbait...
*sigh*
I don't have anything to do with BSD other than my experiments porting OpenBSD tools to DOS (!), but my crystal ball shows FreeBSD holding its own...
I like the BSD license better than the GPV anyway. I started work a couple years ago on a project called RMF-DOS (Reduced Memory Footprint DOS), which never got off the ground, but I did it because I felt the world needed a BSD-licensed DOS clone suited for embedded systems and ancient 8086 boxen. I still believe in it. I just haven't had any way to write a kernel for it.
BSD's philosophy is why it endears itself to the hearts of companies better than Linux (this is not intended as a troll or a flamebait), and also, it is why it is not as well-known as the more radical GNU projects and the Linux kernel.
As long as there's a use for it - and as long as there is BSD code in MacOS X - BSD is very much alive.
Good. Now mod me down into oblivion again.
-uso.
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
Those were the days. In the chapter "Who Owns UNIX?" they never once mention SCO.
The article that's linked to over at extremetech is an extremely good read, but its dated Sept 26, 2002. Does it take Slashdot that long to pick up on BSD-related news?
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
There is nothing in the GPL that prevents you from selling GPL'ed software. In fact, the FSF says to go right ahead and do so if you want. What the GPL of course DOES guarantee is that the software can't become proprietary at any point, whereas the BSDs can be.
Karma whorin' since 1999
Your point may be true aobut the BSD license, it is not about *BSD in generl. Rhe OS is not just the kernel. That has been RMS's point for a long time. compilers, editors, libraries, those make up the OS, not just the kernel. Many of those are GPL'ed.
I read the internet for the articles.
The FreeBSD Project describes Version 5.1 as a "new technology" release, intended to enable users to check out new features, such as Version 5.1's expanded support for USB (Universal Serial Bus) 2.0 devices, RAID and serial-ATA controllers, and USB Ethernet adapters.[...]the FreeBSD Project plans to begin a stable 5.x branch--possibly as soon as this fall--when 5.x should be considered ready for critical production deployments.
looks to me like the "FreeBSD Project" admitted it.
Visualize the world of wine
What does me living somewhere in a dodecahedral shape have to do with what timezone I live in?
Oh you mean geographic, not geometric... Never mind...
It's amazing what passes for "news" around here!
I use FreeBSD, and upgraded to 5.1 from 4.7 about a week after 5.1 was released. Though I did have some issues with X and DRI, I got it working with not much effort. (About 20 minutes of searching the web turned up some instructions that directed me to set ForcePCIMode on in my drivers section of XF86Config.)
Though 5.1 is a new technology release and so not as stable or as fast as 4.8, it is still quite stable and quite fast at most everything I do. I've had no problems with doing my usual work, and some "weird" behavior in or two apps actually went away when recompiled on 5.1 versus 4.7.
That said, I haven't gotten YMessenger to work, and I've been too lazy to try fixing it myself. (It just appears to need to be relinked against a certain lib, and I haven't bothered to find out which one that is.)
Generally, I've not had any trouble running Linux apps under emulation, either.
All my Java 1.4 stuff works, too.
I know that anecdotal evidence proves nothing, but I just thought I'd weigh in with a mostly positive experience of someone who has been a FreeBSD user for quite some time.
Yes, I also use GNU/Linux, too. In fact, I have two machines running GNU/Linux at home, only 1 running FreeBSD, and one other running OpenBSD. Though I may switch one of the GNU/Linux machines to FreeBSD in the near future (maybe after 5-STABLE is branched).
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
[...] to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this BSD box, the same operation would take about 2 minutes.
I owned a Dual Pentium Pro 200 running NT4. What's even funnier is I owned it and the poor fool didn't discover I was serving MP3s (with Gnutella protocol) until about two months later! I did this by hiding the crackapp name of my custom gnutella server from the POSIX tasklist and only would serve the MP3s to the Gnutella network while another filetransfer was active by the local user. 1337 cr4x0r h47h 0wn3d j00!
My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 800 mhz machine at times.
That's not uncommon. I own a 486/25 with 4MB of RAM, S3 video, XFree86-3.3.5, and I telnet to my GS140 AlphaServer, issue a "export DISPLAY='192.168.1.66:0.0'," and finish it off with a "darkplaces >/dev/null 2>&1." I get Icculus' DarkPlaces Quake1 engine playing on my 486/25 machine at about 300 frames per second in software rendering, but alas my 486/25 can effectivly only update the X Server display at about 20 frames per second. Still, my 487/25 is playing DarkPlaces twice as fast as your Pentium3/800! That makes my freeBSD 486/25 much faster than your measly Pentium3/800! And with Linux on the GS140, I have a great team-alliance for stability and performance.
You realy need to ditch that M1cr0$l07h W1nd0z3 NT4 in favor of an operating system that can at-least handle more than four CPUs and USB/Firewire, becuase NT4 is sooo-obsolete, same for ActiveDirectory and IIS; just use Apache/FetchMail/ProFTP
I am using FreeBSD stable since over a year now on my Intel-PC. I noticed I have everything I need here.
:)
The best is, my PC is a regular desktop PC. I can watch DVDs and TV, listen to Oggs, burn CDs, chat and now I am writing this comment.
I have uninstalled Debian. I don't need it, because FreeBSD has got the best Linux emulation in the world. I can even play regular 3D-accelerated games with top frame rates.
I don't understand why people are bitching about FreeBSD. It is easy and even trivial to use. You can install it in many different ways. Experts mostly use minimal installs or even the floppy install.
You can choose between packages or ports, whatever you wish. There are 9000 software ports and they compile without problems. A simple 'make install' in the proper directory is enough to fetch dependencies and install the package. Most of them are pre-configured in a a way which is appropriate for many users. Before and after installation you will get further hints what to do and how to use a port.
The manpages are good. You get examples and a centralized configuration file. I don't need to mention the possibilities if you want to use FreeBSD as a firewall. And the VM is top quality! Heavy load is no problem. You can still listen to your MP3 or watch an AVI while dd'ing a harddisk.
FreeBSD is my favorite OS.
The FreeBSD project has an "Early Adopters Guide."
I'm smart enough to infer from the term "Early Adopter" that this probably isn't quite ready for production use, but the less educated people can find sentences like "While suitable for testing and experimentation, these features may not be ready for production use." in the guide to help clue them in.
Common sense is not so common.
Try this out ! I know that there are several versions out there, one of them specific to I.T. but I don't remember the link off-hand... Someone feeds this post through the B*S Bingo for some fun !
While I recently abandoned RedHat for OpenBSD, I am uncomfortable in the knowledge that Microsoft could continue to incorporate BSD code into their Windows variants, and that I am helping this process by purchasing OpenBSD CDs. While I love the reduction in traffic on the OpenBSD errata channel (vs. RedHat), I do not wish to see the Microsoft monopoly continue, and the only thing that will stop it is the GPL.
While I realize that I could simply attach the GPL to every piece of source code in the BSD CVS tree and redistibute it, my actions would not in reality hamper any corporate acquisitions of BSD code.
Ideally, I would like to see the hacker community free to use the BSD license, while I would like to force the corporate community to abide by the GPL in every piece of software they produce (as will someday occur when Microsoft is finally defeated by "viral" GPL code).
I haven't always felt this way, but US corporations are abusive in many ways, and I would like to see them be more forcibly restrained. A judge instantaneously applying the GPL to all Microsoft software would be a real joy.
He's been harping on the "you can't sell GPL software" point for years even though it's not true. Linux people may also take issue with the quote that it was based on Minix. He's about as much of a pro-BSD, anti-Linux, anti-GPL person as you can get. Notice while he said that many systems are dependent on BSD code, he neglects also note that BSD relies on some GNU code as well.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
So bottom line is, I really liked a lot of Linux's features, but unfortunately an OS without programs is useless.
If you want x86 Unix with some commercial support, there is Linux. If you just want commercial support, there is Windows.
You can still get the commercial apps to work on BSD (and some may be native), but that's not why you are using it. You are using it because you are a geek and you're not a slashbot, macophile, amiga-freak, microsoftie, or aol-er. Also, you don't like getting 0wn3d.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
> 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."
Never. See, these FreeBSD guys are slackers. They're clearly releasing beta code and calling it final. Every Microsoft release is Better, Faster, Easier to Use, More Stable and Reliable than Ever (tm), and helps You Do More Faster. FreeBSD needs to get its act together before it dies out.
Humorless moderators, please consult your sarcasm meters before exercising your mystical powers.
Geepers I've seen this lame troll post before! If freebsd is dead then it sure is making alot of noise. If you really are into coding then bsd is alot more fun than anything else around.
The kernel is rock solid and is easier to test virtual environments without hosing some core config. The core libraries are very easy to protect, and duplicate. The unfortunate thing that I have found about Linux is that the core libraries other than the Kernel make ./config on cross platforms a nightmare with some distros. Slackware is the only one thats still easy to figure out the path structure. With only one official Freebsd some people who are getting tired of having to find paths to ./config for the different Linux distros are switching to Slackware and FreeBSD, for the sake of their santity. To those who like to code for KDE Slackware runs about 30% faster with KDE 3
than Mandrake or RedHat. Bsd smokes if you set it up right. For the bunch that do shell scripts and code in Vi (and its variant) Bsd and Slackware are still the best dual boot and the closest to a real programmers tool. So what if you do not default boot directly into a window manager, unless you set it up. I still like to type startx and find that Mandrake and RedHat installs since version 8 have become geared to Windows users (which is fine) not the Gnu/Bsd/Linux community as a whole.
FreeBsd, Slackware, and Debian have an important place in the free software world they are and will remain the developement platforms of choice, because choice is what they deliver.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
(Nvidia driver incompatable)
/dev but blaming the OS for my mistake would be churlish.
/etc/rc.conf if it's permanemt
Hmmm, I thought Inspiron's had ATI RAGE Mobility M4 graphics. Running X on mine at 640x480 was real easy, as was 800x600. I will admit that getting native resolution is a pain, but such issues are really down to the XFree86 Project, not the OS.
Slight errors in syntax when using ports
So the OS is at fault when you tell it to do something stoopid? You can only make such mistakes if you is root, and the world and his dog know that being root is DANGEROUS! I once fooked a Linux box when I accidentally did an rm-rf
The configuration system doesn't allow for small changes easily
Right. And the SysV rc[0-6].d system is intuitive is it? I've always found BSD OSs much easier to reconfigure. The new RC subsystem has made this even easier.
like getting rid of an IP
ifconfig fxp1 inet 192.168.9.1 delete
Then delete the relevant line from
Linux now has: autohardware detection, good drivers, sample configs for virtually every system
As does FreeBSD.
lots and lots and lots of documentation.
Yes. And most of it is out of date crap. I picked FreeBSD because finding useful Linux documentation proved so tiresome.
How is BSD "friendlier"?
Because the core team concentrate on doing things in a thoughtful, considered, and logical way; with major changes being implemented gradually and then only after a full peer review; and versioning system that makes sense.
Oh yes, we also don't spawn a new distro every time somebody decides they want to do stuff their own way.
Do you mind, your karma has just run over my dogma.
Do you have a
Is your problem really which version of XF86 ships with FreeBSD 5? Without a bit more specification, I can't speak to that particularly well, especially since I'm speaking mostly from NetBSD pkgsrc experience, but if ports is still what it was the last time I looked, it's pretty similar to pkgsrc, and is essentially just a bunch of Makefiles. If you don't want to build things, don't use the source version. On NetBSD, that means "instead of doing a make in pkgsrc/<utility type>/<package name>, do pkg_add <package name>". I have to assume that the FreeBSD ports commands are functionally similar since they're approaching the same problem the same way... Again, without a bit more detail, I can't comprehend how this was a problem. Is it a complaint against (POSIX standard, where Linux's is not) ifconfig(8) syntax? Is it a complaint against
Do you have a
One might like to point out also that FreeBSD is the basis for the best routing OS there is: JunOS. FreeBSD is very ripe for being a commercial product because of the no-nonsense base install, the wonderful kernel which is exceedingly stable and despite the rants of others, is fairly close to being on par with Linux. Linux tends to change rapidly. FreeBSD changes in a more deterministic way. I also must say that bundling the c library and compiler along with a coherent well documented userland is something that Linux systems may want to take a long had look at. I also really like building the kernel, libraries, compiler and userland easily and reliably from a very easy to follow procedure, mine is: /etc/make.conf; CPUTYPE?=p3; CFLAGS= -O2 -pipe -march=pentium3 ; CXXFLAGS+= -fmemoize-lookups -fsave-memoized -O2 -march=pentium3 ; [-march I do repetitively to make sure i get my probably not needed CPU optimizations ;p] ; COPTFLAGS= -O2 -pipe -march=pentium3 ; NOPROFILE= true ; WANT_EXT2FS_MODULE=yes ; MAKE_IDEA= YES ; COMPAT4X= yes ; configure cvsup in /etc/make.conf ; various other tweaks /etc /usr/obj ./usr/src, build system ;
- cvsup the base system to latest CVS stable release
- configure
- reconfigure kernel config file to include SMP [options SMP; options APIC_IO], and a shorter timeout period for the SCSI driver [options SCSI_DELAY=4000], and I add a few things to support IDE-CD burning [device atapicam], etc.
- backup
- clean out
- in
make clean && make cleandepend && make cleandir && make clean && make cleandepend && make cleandir [anal retentive cleansing]
make buildworld ; make buildkernel KERNCONF=SMP
make installkernel KERNCONF=SMP
single user mode
fsck -p ; mount -u / ; mount -a -t ufs ; swapon -a ; adjkerntz -i
mergemaster -p ; make installworld ; mergemaster ; reboot
Now my whole system is custom made for my CPU and hardware. It lets me see the care taken in building the whole system and shows off a very clean build process.
The ports system has many meta-ports that make making an instant workstation quite easy to construct. If you don't want to build your ports with massive optimizations, a large cache of packages are available.
I would like to point out that I have never had an unbuildable world. I've heard of it on -CURRENT, but have never experienced it, but -STABLE is wonderfully - stable!
Ports could use a rollback feature such as the one found in Gentoo. Not that I long for Gentoo [I've used this system and deprecate it for a multitude of reasons, maybe later], I have supervised many systems and find that FreeBSD is the best in terms of stability and longevity. Of course uptime is more of a game, who can build a better mousetrap, but its certainly not a meaningless metric.
The biggest hole in FreeBSD at the moment is Sun's fault. Native Java 1.4 support is available with a bizarre license. Interestingly, IBM and Sun's Linux products actually run very well under the Linux emulation support.
I have never understood the hatred people have for FreeBSD. It bizarre and unfounded. Its a non-RedHat systems to Winux [Windows weenie Linux wannabees] admins, so they have a conniption that real UNIX is complex and detail oriented, and that reading mans, howtos and docs are par for the course - no admin wizards to "save the day." No, you must actually understand and configure something properly.
The documentation on FreeBSD is superior. There are many, many docs that cover basic to esoteric administration, with a lot of attention paid to performance enhancing things one can do.
Add Vinum and UFS2 to the stack of features, and you have yourself some fairly serious filesystem support. While I would like to see XFS in FreeBSD as well, it is a pipe dream, as it is still in "stable" Linux - the best file
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.