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FreeBSD 4.9 Stability Update

Posted by michael on from the solid-as-a-rock dept.

Dan writes "FreeBSD Release Engineering Team's Scott Long would like to get a new poll on the stability and readiness of 4.9. The belief is that the last of the PAE-induced instability was resolved on August 31. Is anyone still experiencing unusual crashes, corruption, etc, on a system that is running with up-to-date sources? Now is the time to speak up and get the problems resolved. Scott is also requesting help with testing. In response to this, we are adding our own poll. Please vote and add comments as appropriate to help Scott."

13 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What instability? by questionlp · · Score: 5, Informative

    Drivers and applications can run into some issues with the way memory is windowed and accessed via PAE. It could be that the drivers that have issues access memory in a way that isn't too friendly to PAE or things are hardcoded so that they could end up with memory violations.

    It's kind of like making drivers work properly in non-SMP and SMP mode, mostly how interrupts are handled. It can get even trickier when you throw in NUMA or ccNUMA found in the AMD64 architecture. /me shrugs

  2. Stability by mediumgreen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I, for one, am very pleased to see the release team err on the side of caution and make sure that stability issues have been resolved before releasing 4.9. It seems that too much software is release way too early - and while not intended to be a troll - especially Linux with it's libc and kernel du'jour. I'll use Linux when I have no choice, but the stability and ease of use of FreeBSD make it my top choice for my x86 servers.

    1. Re:Stability by realdpk · · Score: 2, Funny

      MySQL's slogan. "Release early, release often". I'm not kidding.

    2. Re:Stability by Admiral+Llama · · Score: 2, Funny

      I felt some instability in STABLE so I switched to CURRENT. 5.2 is coming down the pipe, so I figured the "we thought we nipped this but it turns out we didn't" warning in the updating file was enough to prod me over to CURRENT.

      Maybe this is their secret way of getting more users to test out CURRENT?

  3. AMEN! Why can't they... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Can't these Perl geeks figure out a way in slash to disable AC posting just in bsd.slashdot.org? Or even any topic that has the BSD topic assigned to it?

  4. I hope you know what -STABLE means by dodell · · Score: 3, Informative

    Okay, education point here (if you know, then it's cool. If not, here's something you should know).

    The -STABLE branch is NOT STABLE! In the FreeBSD development cycle, the most stable systems run -RELEASE. Major development is done on -CURRENT. Working ideas are then moved into -STABLE (to stablize) -- a -STABLE system is a development system and is not guaranteed to boot. When the -STABLE branch proves itself to be very stable and contains enough new functionality, a -RELEASE snapshot is made. -STABLE should be renamed to -BETA or something similar (it actually was at one point, but this was retracted when a lot of people complained that they didn't want a -BETA branch, they wanted it to be stable).

    For more information, please read about -CURRENT and -STABLE and what they really are at http://freebsd.org/handbook/current-stable.html.

    Unless you're doing development and if these are production servers, I suggest that you run -RELEASE on them.

    --
    www.sitetronics.com/wordpress
    1. Re:I hope you know what -STABLE means by innosent · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think it's more like -MORESTABLETHANCURRENT. In other words, it's sort of like a point release (the xx part) in Linux's Stable tree (2.4.xx). It means something like "We've tested this, and it looks good, but let us know if anything breaks", as opposed to -CURRENT's "We've run this once or twice, still working on it, please help us get it to work correctly", and -RELEASE's "You didn't complain when it was STABLE, so we're not planning on fixing any bugs for a long time".

      So basically, CURRENT is like the 2.5.xx/2.6.xtest series of Linux, STABLE is like 2.4.xx, and RELEASE is more like 2.4.x9. Unless there are extreme circumstances, or important new hardware, RELEASE versions aren't put out that often. Hell, 4.7 and 4.8 were 6 months apart, and it'll be at least six months since 4.8 (April 3) before 4.9 is out.

      --
      --That's the point of being root, you can do anything you want, even if it's stupid.
    2. Re:I hope you know what -STABLE means by Echo|Fox · · Score: 5, Informative

      Errr, no.

      The -RELEASE branches _are_ kept secured as a security branch for all currently maintained -RELEASE branches.

      Any time a vulnerability is found, the patches go into -STABLE, but are also added to all of the supported -RELEASE trees, which would then show as a patchlevel in the version. If you cvsup a 4.8-RELEASE box to RELENG_4_8 right now, you'd end up with 4.8-RELEASE-p7, which would include patches for all of the security vulnerabilities up till now (including the latest OpenSSH and Sendmail vulnerabilities).

      Personally, I find tracking the security branches of -RELEASEs to be safer and more convenient, since I always know what is running on a given server. Since new features _are_ backported from -CURRENT to -STABLE, I could end up with two 4-STABLE machines running different versions of software. The only time I'll run -STABLE on a production server is when there is a bug in a -RELEASE, or there is a new feature in -STABLE I really need. And frankly, that hasn't happened since the early 3.x days.

  5. IF BSD IS DYING.... by utlemming · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Tell me...if BSD is dying, then how come FreeBSD is running the top five internet servers in speed and reliability? According to Netcraft, which you so frequently post, the top fifty servers with the longest up time are running FreeBSD. And even your beloved Netcraft is running FreeBSD. Additionally, there is an estimated 2,000,000 websites running FreeBSD, and that does not include all of the work stations. You will note that Yahoo uses FreeBSD. All though just a small gallery, the FreeBSD website has a listing of people that are running FreeBSD and have registered it on the website. So forgive me for being cynnical, but to the person that has said repeatedly that there are only 36000 FreeBSD users, go to hell. Honestly, if you are going to post bad numbers, at least get some of them right. According to the gallery of people that announced their FreeBSD use, 3831 are servers if you believe the guy that has said that there are 36000 users. Second the moron that says that there are only 36000 FreeBSD users fails to realize that Usenet postings are not a reliable way of figuring out how many people are really using FreeBSD. Heck, using that logic, I would say that, by Usenet postings, Microsoft Windows is only run on 150,000 machines. Where did you get that 93% of developers have abandoned FreeBSD? If you are going to post give us some evidence.

    The SysAdmin magizine survey did not say that FreeBSD was dead last. Rather it said that FreeBSD is 6x slower than Linux in Disk IO functions, but is not nearly as bad as Solaris or Windows (which had a 10x improvment). The SysAdmin maginzine title was "Which OS is Fastest for High-Performance Network Applications?" and Linux won. It did not state that FreeBSD is falling in disarray -- that was a flawed conclusion reached by the annoymous coward. The article says that FreeBSD is not well suited for High-Performance Network Applications. Go to HELL bastard.

    Additionally -- how come all you trolls out there have to hide behind annoymous coward? Everytime there is some BSD news, you guys come out of the wood work, make some smart-allick remark and post the same trash. Look, FreeBSD is just as good as Linux and vice versa. FreeBSD has some strong points, and so does Linux. Just because you belong the cult of the Penguin does not mean that you have the right to use the same tactics as SCO -- FUD.

    --
    The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
  6. YHBT FOAD HAND by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Dude, dont take the BSD trolls so seriously. They KNOW that BSD isnt dying.

    They prey on the common arrogance and over-protectionistic attitudes you guys have and it just FEEDS THEM TO POST MORE CRAP.

  7. Re:What instability? by tgreiner · · Score: 2, Informative

    From what I remember from the discussions on the mailing list the PAE import seems to have various instabilities even if not running PAE. This needs to be ironed out before a release. And seemingly this IS already fixed.

  8. Number #1 Reason for continued trolling: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You guys keep feeding the trolls!

    Everytime someone posts the same copy-and-paste bit for the 2334th time, some idiot responds as if the troll poster thinks what he is pasting is true.

    Want to make them go away? Then don't reply! Pretend they don't exist. Just let moderators take care of then and you'll have much less of a troll problem on your hands.

  9. Why? by 00_NOP · · Score: 2, Interesting

    OK, Linux leads in the server world, but BSD is more stable and surely isn't any more difficult to set up and configure.

    What is the reason? All the effort that goes into security and stability in BSD doesn't seem to be getting it very far (in the sense it's mind share is probably falling if one ignores OS X), which is particularly odd when the core concept of the system - Unix - is through, OS X and Linux, reaching bigger and bigger audiences all the time - not bad for an OS that was pronounced dead when Win NT was launched more than a decade ago.

    Is it just the larger enthusiast base for Linux? Or what?

    I am a linux person, and when I switched from the beast's offerings I chose Linux because that was all I knew about and though I'd heard of BSD it was the BSD/OS... so is it just hype? Or is there something missing with the free BSDs?